


Brainy and the Beast

by detectivejigsaw



Category: Beauty and the Beast (1991), Gravity Falls, La Belle et la Bête | Beauty and the Beast (Fairy Tale)
Genre: Also lots of amnesia, Angst, Beast Stan, Beauty and the Beast AU, Bill Cipher is a Jerk, Doesn't follow quite the same format you might be expecting, Gen, Not everything needs to be romantic, Slightly Steampunk, Slightly adheres to the original fairy tale, ambiguous time period, lots of platonic love, orphan Dipper & Mabel, some characters are animals
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-19
Updated: 2021-03-14
Packaged: 2021-03-17 17:00:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 32,506
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28852455
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/detectivejigsaw/pseuds/detectivejigsaw
Summary: Stanford Pines is a strange old man living in a cabin on the edge of town, isolated from everyone aside from his friends Fiddleford and Tate, and with strangely few memories of his past and a deep, abiding fear of the nearby forest that not even he understands the reasons for.Then one day his niece and nephew are sent to live with him, and despite his warnings they end up straying into the woods.And while they're there, they find a mysterious Beast, and all their lives are changed forever...Written as a gift for AlexTWDgf01, since it's based on an idea of theirs and they said I could write it as long as I gave them the credit for it, so I'm finally cashing in on that deal.Hopefully I do it justice. 🤞
Relationships: Dipper Pines & Ford Pines, Dipper Pines & Mabel Pines, Dipper Pines & Stan Pines, Fiddleford H. McGucket & Ford Pines, Fiddleford H. McGucket & Tate McGucket, Ford Pines & Mabel Pines, Ford Pines & Stan Pines, Jesus "Soos" Alzamirano Ramirez & Dipper Pines & Mabel Pines, Jesus "Soos" Alzamirano Ramirez & Stan Pines, Mabel Pines & Stan Pines, Wendy Corduroy & Dipper Pines & Mabel Pines, Wendy Corduroy & Ford Pines, Wendy Corduroy & Stan Pines
Comments: 362
Kudos: 94





	1. First impressions are important

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AlexTWDgf01](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlexTWDgf01/gifts).



Stanford Pines was fully aware that he didn’t fit in with the townsfolk of Gravity Falls. But as far back as he could remember he had never fit in anywhere, so he usually didn’t let it bother him.

Stanford had always known that he was different from other people.

He was interested in and attracted to strange things, and liked to ask strange questions that he would then try to find the answers to, like why the sky was blue, or what made fire burn, or if there was life on other planets (heck, he was the only person in this provincial town who seemed to know that other planets _existed_ , or even what a planet _was_ ). He read books as often as he could get his hands on them, and did extensive studies of the strange creatures that lived in the surrounding forest, which all the other superstitious (or just plain stupid and oblivious) people avoided like the plague. Oh, and Stanford (or Ford, as he would have liked to be called by his friends, if he’d had any) had six fingers on each hand, which meant he had been accused of witchcraft on several occasions, and nearly led to him being burned at the stake once, until he used a few of his inventions to scare the angry mob away (they hadn’t tried again, but he’d lost count of the number of times people made signs to ward off the evil eye when he passed them in the street).

So when he received a letter one day, informing him that his only remaining relatives, a twin boy and girl named Mason and Mabel, needed him to become their guardian because their parents and grandfather had died... he was apprehensive. Not just because he had so little experience with children; he was worried that they would see him as an odd, dangerous wizard too. And for some reason, hearing that they were twins created an uncomfortable feeling in his gut.

Fiddleford said he was, as usual, overthinking things, and he should at least get to know the children before he set himself up for them not liking him.

Who’s Fiddleford, you ask?

Oh, right. Sorry, I lied.

Ford had exactly _one_ friend: a fellow inventor (arguably even better at the craft than he was) named Fiddleford McGucket. He was accused of witchcraft less often than Ford, but he was still seen as dangerous and somewhat mentally unstable (which probably had something to do with his habit of building automatons and their having once or twice gone rogue and attacked the town). He and his son Tate lived in a house/workshop on Ford’s property, and were more or less his only interactions with people unless he was forced to go into town for some reason, until the day when the children arrived.

* * *

Ford wasn’t sure what he was expecting when he went to the village square to collect them...but he knew it wasn’t a high-pitched, excited squeal and being nearly knocked off his feet by an explosion of color surging towards him and wrapping itself around his middle.

“Oh my _gosh_ are you our Great Uncle Stanford it’s so nice to finally meet you Grandpa Shermie told us a lot about you but we never thought we’d get to see you in person oh wow you really _do_ have six fingers, that’s incredible it’s like a whole finger friendlier than normal!”

Even through his dazed attempt to follow that sentence, Ford decided that he liked this girl (he managed to ascertain that it was a girl once he extricated himself)-she was weird.

The boy was more wary than his sister, waiting by the fountain where they’d been dropped off until Ford was free, before stepping forward and giving him a shy nod.

“Um. Hi.”

“Hello, Mason.” Ford offered his hand. Mason’s eyes stared curiously at his extra finger, but he didn’t seem repulsed by it. He just reciprocated the handshake, with a somewhat sweaty hand.

Mabel looked confused for a second, before her own eyes widened and she laughed.

“Ohhhh, I get it, you don’t know! Everyone in our family-” her voice faltered a little bit, before she visibly forced it back to its earlier bubbliness- “calls him Dipper!”

Ford gave them a puzzled stare. “...Dipper?”

The boy sighed, and then lifted his hat before pulling back his bangs.

“Oh. I see.” Ford knelt down and examined the birthmark etched across his forehead. “It’s a remarkable likeness.”

Dipper blushed, but also seemed pleased with his assessment-and perhaps a little relieved too. Most likely he received the same sort of persecution for it as Ford did for his hands.

Ford began to feel like perhaps he could form a kinship (ha ha) with his niece and nephew after all.

* * *

Mabel chattered excitedly about their trip (what kind of animals they’d seen during their travels, what they’d eaten, etc.) as they gathered their (scant) luggage, and headed towards the house. Dipper was more reticent, but he contributed the occasional comment.

As they walked, Ford wondered if he should offer some sort of condolences about their parents. On the other hand, they didn’t seem too upset at the moment, and bringing them up might make them start to cry or something and he knew even less about dealing with crying children than he did about dealing with them when they were happy or at least emotionally stable. But if he _didn’t_ say anything, didn’t that make him seem a little insensitive about the whole thing?

He was spared from the paralyzing indecision when a voice yelled, “LOOK OUT BELOW!” just before a giant, flaming projectile came crashing to the ground right in front of them.

The children immediately latched on to each other with alarmed screams, falling over their own feet in an attempt to escape what, after a moment in which his heart tried to restart, Ford recognized as an enormous hunk of metal that had been formed into the shape of a dragon’s head. Spurts of fire were shooting out of its mouth and eyes, and setting the nearby grass on fire.

“Awww, dang blame it all!” a voice called out in irritation, as a giant headless automaton came trotting out of the trees (or to be more precise, smashing through them). After a moment, a wizened figure with a long white beard popped out the top of the neck, and scrambled down its side with surprisingly monkeylike agility as it came to a halt. He snatched a wooden bucket from the corner of the house and scrambled over to the head, hurriedly dumping water over it and extinguishing the flames. He absentmindedly put out a small fire that had started up in his beard, muttering about “dang incendiaries” and “must’ve added a mite too much kerosene,” until Ford cleared his throat.

Fiddleford looked up in confusion, and adjusted his large green spectacles before they could slide down his nose.

“What? I tole you it’s a work in progress-”

Then his eyes landed on the two children, who were standing behind Ford and looking more than a little terrified.

“...Oh.”

The old man raised his hand and waved at them sheepishly.

“...Howdy, kidlets. Sorry ‘bout that. Jes’ workin’ out a few kinks in Old Bessie here, didn’t mean ta frighten ya none.”

Dipper blinked. “Uh-what?”

Fiddleford squared his thin shoulders, and then hefted the giant head up onto his back. “Old Man McGucket, local kook and part-time inventor, at your service!” He spat on his greasy palm, and offered it to the children.

Dipper stepped back, wrinkling his nose. “Why did you just spit on your hand?”

Fiddleford shrugged. “I don’t rightly know!” He was just about to wipe it off on his beard when Mabel stepped forward, spat on her own hand, and grabbed his, pumping vigorously.

“Nice to meet you, Old Man McGucket! I’m Mabel, and this is my twin brother Dipper! We’re here to live with our Great Uncle Stanford!”

Ford made a mental note to teach the children about his findings on the importance of personal hygiene, and the tiny invisible creatures that he’d learned lived in people’s bodies which should generally _not_ be spread around because that was what led to diseases.

* * *

***

* * *

Dipper wondered just what kind of place they were being forced to make their new home.

So far it appeared to be populated by at least one lunatic, which made him wonder a little suspiciously about Great Uncle Stanford’s own mental stability if he was letting this McGucket guy live here.

...Granted, it was nice that his first response to learning of Dipper’s nickname and birthmark had not included any kind of ridicule, which was a pleasant change from the norm. And Grandpa Shermie and their parents (he tried to ignore the lump in his throat that rose as he remembered them) had at least seemed to trust him enough to make him their guardian.

But he still watched the old man with wary eyes as they made their way to the house and stepped inside.

And once they were inside the house properly, he realized that his suspicions might be partly correct: this seemed like the kind of house that would belong to a wizard, or an alchemist.

Everywhere he looked, there were books-stacked haphazardly in piles, resting on tables, and even a few of them were on a mostly-empty bookcase in one corner of the main room. There were also hundreds of papers, covered in untidy scrawls and drawings of strange creatures, left seemingly wherever they’d been set down. A series of enormous glass jars was set against a wall, and inside them there appeared to be a wide variety of preserved plant and animal specimens-many of which were wholly unfamiliar. And on another table, as they went into another room, Dipper saw a series of unique glass containers in unfamiliar shapes and sizes that were filled with strange, bubbling liquids, and a couple of which had fires lit underneath them.

...He wasn’t sure if he was more frightened or intrigued.

Mabel, who was generally the more optimistic of the two, had settled on the latter; she kept looking at everything with wide, curious eyes, and reaching out to touch everything that was close enough.

“This place is _amazing_!” she piped up at last. “You have so much cool stuff, Great Uncle Stanford!”

Stanford, who had been walking steadily ahead of them through the house, let out a startled noise and spun around.

He stared down at them for a few seconds, wearing a very odd expression, before shaking his head.

“What? Oh. Yes.” Then, as what seemed like an afterthought, “...Thank you.”

Dipper’s fears were starting to reassert themselves ( _what was that all about is something wrong with him that Grandpa didn’t know about is he going to randomly go insane and try to kill us_ ) when Stanford spoke again: “...I’ve cleared some space for you in the attic, if that’s all right.”

Dipper and Mabel looked at each other, then back at him, and shrugged.

“That’s fine.”

“It’s probably better than some of the places we’ve been sleeping for the last week!”

A pinched frown appeared between his eyebrows. “...I see. Well, come with me.” He turned again.

* * *

The attic seemed comfortable enough; it was mostly empty, aside from a bed set up on each side of the room. Mabel immediately set about decorating her side with what seemed like every picture she’d ever drawn in her life, while Dipper dumped his pack on his bed and sat down with a small sigh. He noted, with a hint of pleased surprise, that the mattress seemed to be filled with something far more comfortable than the straw he was used to.

Stanford stood uncomfortably in the doorway, fumbling with his hands, as the children explored the room.

“...I suppose I’ll leave you alone, then. Unless there’s anything you need?”

“How about seein’ if they’d like some food?” a voice drawled dryly from behind him.

It belonged to a man in light green clothes, with a hat pulled down over his eyes and bearing a passing resemblance to Old Man McGucket. “They’ve been travelin’ all day, ya might wanna see if they’re hungry.”

Stanford startled again as he turned around, before relaxing. “Oh-of course. Thank you, Tate.”

Dipper couldn’t tell, but it looked a little bit like Tate rolled his eyes based on his posture.

“Sure, I’m starving!” Mabel chirped.

Dipper considered. He hadn’t had much of an appetite over the last few weeks, after the thing-he-was-trying-not-to-think-about-too-much. But…

“I could eat.”

Tate bobbed his head. “Kay.” Without further ado, he turned and clomped towards the stairs.

Stanford gave them an awkward smile. “...Tate’s not much of a talker. But he’s a hard worker, and he basically keeps things running around here when Fiddleford and I get caught up in our research.”

“What kind of stuff do you research?” Dipper asked curiously.

Stanford hesitated. “...This land has many interesting types of plants and animals.”

“Ooh, like giraffes?” Mabel asked. “Grandpa told us about those! He says-” she faltered again- “said he saw one once, and they’ve got the longest necks in the world!”

“...Not exactly. Or at least, I have never seen a giraffe in this part of the world. But...perhaps at some point I will show you what I mean.”

Dipper felt his intrigue gain a little ground over the fright.

“In the meantime, though, I think I should set some ground rules.” Stanford straightened his already-pretty-straight back, and began pacing in front of them. “First of all, don’t touch any of my experiments unless I tell you it’s safe. Some of the substances that I work with are very dangerous, and I don’t want you to get hurt.”

_...Definitely a wizard or an alchemist._

“You are free to ask questions about whatever you want, and I will do my best to answer them. The best way to learn things is by asking questions.”

“What about by doing things?” Mabel asked.

“That is a natural part of asking questions.” Stanford gave her a tight smile which quickly evaporated, as he began the next sentence. “And finally-stay out of the forest. Never go in there unless I or Fiddleford or Tate come with you.”

Dipper tilted his head. “Why?”

That look from earlier crossed his great uncle’s face again. This time he recognized the kind of emotions that were used to make it up: something between blank confusion, and a rush of fear.

It was enough to make goosebumps rise on Dipper’s arms.

After a moment Stanford collected himself, and said, “Not all of the creatures that live here are friendly.”

“What, like wolves?” Mabel asked.

“There are wolves, yes.” He looked ready to say something else; instead he followed with, “I’ll have Tate bring you up some food shortly; it should be almost ready. Let me know if you need anything else.”

And he went away, leaving the children alone in their new room.


	2. Cries in the night

“...This isn’t so bad, huh, Dipper?” Mabel said at last. “I mean, Great Uncle Stanford’s _kinda_ weird, but hey, we’re both pretty weird too, right? And his house has so much cool stuff in it! I think we’re gonna like it here.”

“...Maybe.” Dipper just lay down in the middle of the bed, and curled up with his back to her.

Mabel’s bright smile faded away, and she let out a small sigh. Clearly Operation Stay-Cheerful-To-Keep-Dipper-Happy wasn’t working like she’d hoped it would. But he didn’t want to talk either, and she was rapidly running out of ideas.

_Hopefully things will be different here._

After a few minutes Tate returned, carrying a wooden tray that had a large loaf of bread, a knife, and two bowls of stew onboard, along with two wooden cups of water. He set the tray on the floor between their beds, then straightened up.

“Put that on the dumbwaiter when you’re done.”

Mabel blinked. “...The what?”

Tate paused. “Oh. Right. Sorry. C’mere and I’ll show you.”

Mabel looked over at Dipper to see if he wanted to see the dumb waiter (that didn’t seem like a very nice way to describe whoever that was) too, but he didn’t even look up, so she just followed Tate out to the foot of the stairs.

Tate gestured to a sort of wooden cupboard set in the wall with a crank next to it, and opened the door. Inside, to her surprise, Mabel saw a lot of ropes, and a little wooden platform thingy.

“Just put the tray on that, and then turn the crank ta the right, and that’ll send it back downstairs.”

“Whoa, neat!” Mabel praised.

“Yup. My dad designed it.” A note of pride entered his voice as he spoke. Then, as an afterthought, he added, “Turn it the other way ta bring the platform back up. But either way, remember: turn it _slowly_. Ya don’t wanna strain the ropes too much.”

Mabel nodded. “Right is up, left is down, turn it slow or it all falls down. Got it.”

Tate gave her an approving nod, and then headed for the stairs.

To her relief, when Mabel came back Dipper was sitting on the floor and using the knife to cut a couple of slices of bread. She sat down across from him, and he passed her one of the slices, before picking up one of the bowls and getting started eating. It was the first time he’d done so without being prompted in weeks.

It was a very good stew, with big juicy chunks of meat in it, and a bunch of vegetables that Mabel enjoyed more than she usually did. Neither of them talked much, more absorbed in enjoying the meal.

When they finished, Mabel took the tray back to the dumbwaiter (why the heck did they call it that?) and turned the crank, watching with delight as the tray slowly disappeared into the darkness. When it wouldn’t go any further, she saw, down at the bottom of the shaft, a flicker of light suddenly appear, before a pair of hands (she thought maybe they were Tate’s) reached in and grabbed the tray, and the light disappeared again.

_So cool._

“So,” she asked when she returned to their room, “you wanna go explore the house?”

Dipper shook his head. “Not right now, sorry. I...kinda just wanna go to sleep.”

Part of Mabel wanted to drag him out of the room regardless, see if that would shake him out of his shell a little. The brother she knew would have _leaped_ at the chance to go check out all the weird stuff their great uncle (ugh, that was too long to say all the time-she’d have to figure out a way to shorten it) and his crazy friend had around here.

Instead, she sighed again. “Okay. Maybe tomorrow?”

“Yeah. Maybe.” And, barely taking the time to take off his shoes, vest and hat, Dipper crawled under the blankets and bundled himself up until he looked more like a caterpillar than a twelve-year-old boy.

It wasn’t that dark out, but Mabel changed into her nightdress and climbed into her own bed.

“Night, Dipper,” she said softly once she was settled under the covers.

“Night, Mabel.”

Before long they were both asleep.

* * *

***

* * *

_The plague had passed through their town without mercy, seeming to have no set pattern in who it infected or who it spared. Strong, healthy young people; weak, frail old people; children-anyone could catch the disease. Not even the rabbi, the holiest man in town, managed to escape it._

_Within days of its arrival Dipper and Mabel’s mother, father and grandfather were all dying, and even Mabel had developed some symptoms, but she’d been one of the lucky ones, and was able to fight them off. Dipper suspected her spirit was simply too stubborn to let itself be taken away by the plague._

_But not him._

_For some reason, Dipper hadn’t gotten sick at all._

_It felt like the world’s cruellest joke. Compared to Mabel, he was_ always _the one who got sick. Heck, when they were first born he’d had the umbilical cord wrapped around his neck, and it was only by the barest stroke of fortune that he’d managed to survive. But now, when everyone else was dying in droves around him and his own_ sister _was briefly ill, Dipper hadn’t been touched._

_He didn’t know if it was a miracle or a sign that he was secretly a witch (like some of the people in town had whispered to each other when they thought he couldn’t hear) or something else altogether...but he hated it._

_He and Mabel hadn’t even gotten to see their family’s bodies one last time before they were taken away, because the corpses could sometimes still spread disease._

_But he kept getting this image in his head of what would have happened if they’d been allowed to see them: that his parents and grandfather would open their cold dead eyes, one by one, and slowly sit up and look at him, and ask, “Why didn’t you get sick instead of us?”_

* * *

Dipper opened his eyes with a gasp, and tried to struggle his way out of the entangling sheets.

For a second he lay there in a state of disoriented bewilderment as he registered that this was not his bed, this was not his house, what had happened-

Then he remembered.

Traveling all the way to this little town, Gravity Falls.

Meeting their uncle, and his odd friend who created monsters out of metal.

This was his and Mabel’s home now.

Slowly he sat up, and put a hand over his racing heart, taking a few deep breaths, and (though he didn’t want to acknowledge it) scrubbing at his eyes with his other hand.

After a moment he glanced over at Mabel.

She was still peacefully asleep, snoring in fact, with one arm flung up over her forehead.

The sight helped him to relax, and ignore the ever-present sick feeling in his gut at least a little.

He was just lying down to try and go back to sleep, when his nerves were all set alight again by a horrifying noise.

A long, drawn-out roar that echoed from somewhere in the depths of the forest, and sounded like it came from something big.

_Holy Moses, what was that?!_

Dipper sat up again, and after a moment of indecision tiptoed over to the window and pushed it open, peering frantically out at the forest.

There was no sign of whatever had made the noise. He wasn’t sure if that made things better or worse.

* * *

***

* * *

Ford was also awake, making a herculean attempt at organizing some of his research, because he tended to just end up tossing what he wrote down and whatever sketches he drew anywhere that was close enough. Fiddleford kept telling him he should try putting them all in a book or something, but somehow he never could get around to doing it.

He jerked upright from where he was kneeling on the floor, gathering scattered papers, when he heard the noise, and glanced uneasily out the window at the moonlit landscape.

Mercifully, he didn’t have to hear that horrible roaring every night. But whenever he did...it brought on another one of his headaches.

The front of his head would _throb_ , and for just a moment a few indistinct images and sounds would float their way across his mind, disappearing before he could try to make sense of them.

It frustrated him to no end, not least because they always came with a feeling.

Like-like something terrible had happened, but he didn’t know what it was.

Ford clutched his forehead, massaging it with the tips of his fingers, until the pain receded enough for him to stand.

What had he been…?

Oh, yes. The handful of papers clutched in his hand.

Ford carried them upstairs to his study, and placed them on his already-overflowing desk.

So far things with the children weren’t going too badly, he reflected as he began sorting them into piles of observations vs. sketches. They seemed to have accepted his rules readily enough, and neither of them had been overly perturbed by his hands. Mabel was more exuberant than he was expecting, while Dipper was far more reticent, but it wasn’t that odd, he supposed. They just had different personalities, not unlike him and-

And-

His head ached again, and he had to stop and drink some water.

Ford forgot whatever it was he’d been thinking about, and lost himself in his work until he fell asleep from exhaustion.

* * *

In the morning, he was concerned to see that Dipper didn’t look like he had slept well; his eyes had dark bags underneath them, and his hair was sticking up all over like he’d been tossing and turning for most of the night.

Mabel, on the other hand, looked as fresh as a daisy, and beamed at Ford as he sat down at the table across from them.

“Good morning, Grunkle Ford!”

“Good morning, Mab-” He stopped short. “I beg your pardon?”

She bounced a little in her seat. “I figure it’s easier than saying Great Uncle Stanford all the time. Just take ‘great’ and ‘uncle’ and smush ‘em together-” she moved her hands together to demonstrate- “and Ford for short.” Then her eyebrows did a little concerned frown. “...Unless you prefer being called Stan, maybe?”

Ford shook his head. “No-Ford is what I prefer to be called. Thank you.”

The enormous smile returned. “That settles it! Grunkle Ford it is!”

Ford wondered why his heart was doing that funny thing in his chest. It felt like a good thing. Either way, though, the smile he offered her was less awkward or unsure than his previous ones had been.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My conscience: Detective Jigsaw, why are you so mean to Dipper? Why did you make things so unnecessarily tragic for him in a story that's already pretty tragic?  
> My writer side, grinning evilly: Because it suited me, mwahahahahahahaha.
> 
> ...Sometimes I worry about myself.


	3. A book of mystery

After breakfast was eaten and the dishes washed up, Fiddleford and Tate headed out to get back to work on the automaton...and Ford and the children ended up standing in the kitchen for a moment, staring awkwardly at each other.

Finally, Ford cleared his throat.

“Um. I...I have some work to do. Do you think you’ll be able to amuse yourselves for the day?”

To his equal parts horror and bewilderment, the children’s expressions became more than a little crestfallen.

_What did I say?_

As he was trying to figure it out, Mabel suddenly brightened. “What kinda work are you doing? Can we help?”

The possibility seemed to attract Dipper’s interest too. “Yeah, I like researching and investigating stuff! Back home-” his voice faltered for a second, but then raised its level of enthusiasm again- “we had a pile of tin cans that kept disappearing, and I managed to figure out all on my own that they were being eaten by this goat that belonged to one of our neighbors!”

“We were lucky he caught him-he was probably gonna start on our house next!” Mabel said dramatically.

And for a moment, Ford was tempted to allow the children to accompany him. They both seemed like they were genuinely interested in what he was doing, and a cautiously optimistic part of him thought that perhaps he would enjoy their company while wandering into the woods to spy on the horde of feral Killbillies who had claimed a nearby glade as their territory-

His words caught up with his brain.

“...I don’t think it would be safe for you where I’m going.”

The earlier disappointment returned to their faces with a vengeance, and Ford nearly relented-but reminded himself firmly that he was their guardian now, and it was a guardian’s job to protect the children in their care.

“You can find Fiddleford or Tate if you need anything; I’ll be back for dinner.” And he strode out of the room, snatching his long coat as he reached the front door (which contained a handy collection of papers, some charcoal pencils and a new kind of pen he’d invented that didn’t require an inkwell), and disappeared into the forest.

* * *

***

* * *

Mabel let out a frustrated huff once Grunkle Ford was gone.

So much for their opportunity to bond with their grunkle.

And Dipper had seemed a little more like his old self at the prospect of helping him out with whatever he was studying, so she was doubly disappointed.

But she just sighed, and put a comforting arm around Dipper’s shoulders.

“...Maybe we can go next time.”

To her relief, instead of pulling away he leaned against her and sighed too. “Yeah. Maybe.”

They ended up wandering around the house for the rest of the morning, seeing what it was like (and trying to make some sense of the house’s design-it seemed like it was bigger on the inside, for heaven’s sake, there were so many rooms).

Mabel suggested asking Grunkle Ford if they could help clean up the place whenever they got back, maybe organize some of the papers and things a little better-in fact she almost got started doing just that, until Dipper reminded her that he might not like it if she just started going through his stuff, and that they didn’t want him throwing them out just yet.

“He’s not gonna throw us out, Dipper, don’t be silly!”

...All the same, she decided to leave Grunkle Ford’s stuff alone until he got back.

When they got tired of exploring the house, they went outside to see the rest of the property.

They found McGucket and his son out by a smaller cabin about thirty feet away from the house, reattaching the head to the automaton, which was now lying on its side. The old man waved to them cheerfully, before going back to pounding his blacksmith’s hammer against the now red-hot metal.

“He’s a lot stronger than he looks,” Mabel observed.

The house was surrounded by forest on all sides, except for at the front, where lay the path that would take them back towards town. There was also a vegetable garden (which appeared to be neatly tended, so they assumed it was once again Tate’s work), and a well that had a curious metal-and-wood device covering it that connected to the side of the house (presumably another of Grunkle Ford and/or McGucket’s inventions).

All in all, not a very fancy place to live-but Mabel thought she could get used to it.

After some more searching they found an old ball lying by the side of the house, and started an impromptu game that mostly consisted of kicking it back and forth, trying to see who could get it the farthest and the highest.

To her delight, Dipper “woke up” again as they played. He even smiled a few times when he got in a really good kick, and when Mabel tried to balance the ball on her foot and ended up falling on her rump he actually laughed (but not in a mean way, since he helped her up afterwards).

Unfortunately, without realizing it they had made their way right to the edge of the woods as they played, and the next time Mabel kicked the ball, Dipper was unable to catch it in time-and it went sailing over their heads, and disappeared between the trees.

For a moment the children stood there, staring with distress after the missing ball.

Then Mabel straightened her spine, and announced, “I’m gonna go find it,” and stepped over the property line into the trees.

Dipper let out a panicked yelp, and grabbed her arm, trying to pull her back. “Mabel! Grunkle Ford said-”

“I’m not gonna go too far!” Mabel pulled in the opposite direction. “I just wanna get the ball back!”

Dipper looked incredibly unhappy...but finally sighed and followed her into the trees, picking up a large fallen branch and brandishing it in his hands like a club.

* * *

The ball had gone farther than they expected, so they ended up making their way out of sight of the house before Mabel finally spotted it, wedged between the upper branches of a big oak tree, with a hollow part in the center that looked kind of like a giant eye.

The whole time they were walking Dipper kept jerking his head from side to side nervously, and shifted his hands back and forth around the branch, like any second he expected something to jump out of nowhere and attack them.

“ _Relax_ , bro-bro,” Mabel admonished, grabbing onto one of the lower branches and pulling herself up. “What, you think something’s gonna eat us or something?”

“That’s how it happens in every story ever where people get overconfident and say something like, ‘Oh, let’s go into this haunted house, no way _this_ could possibly go wrong,’” Dipper muttered. Then he glanced up at her and bit his lip. “...Besides, last night I-I kinda heard something out here.”

“Really? Like what?” Mabel finally reached the ball, and began prying it loose.

“...I dunno. It didn’t sound like anything I’d ever heard before. But it was roaring, and-”

Dipper’s voice trailed off.

Mabel looked down, and saw that he’d put down the branch, and was looking at the tree trunk with puzzled curiosity.

“What the…?” he muttered, before stepping forward and reaching into the hollow part.

She scrambled down towards the ground, cradling the ball in one arm.

“What is it?” she asked, just in time for him to pull out, of all things...an old red book.

It was all tattered and beat up, and the back of the spine looked like it was just hanging on by a few threads, but that just kind of added to the coolness factor.

There was a gold symbol of some kind on the front, but it was so ripped up that Mabel couldn’t tell what it used to be.

“Whoa,” she marveled, examining the book. “Wonder who left that in a tree?”

Dipper opened it gingerly. “...There’s no name on the inside, so that’s no help.”

He turned the page, and found a picture of what looked like a bat, next to a sketch of some giant eyeballs. “Whoa. Both interesting _and_ disgusting.”

He probably would have stood there all day, examining the contents of the book, had Mabel not tapped him on the shoulder.

“Hey. We should probably get back before anyone realizes we’re gone.”

Dipper blanched. “Good idea.”

And together they hurried back towards the clearing where the house was, neither one noticing that the hollow in the tree now appeared to be watching them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Are tin cans somewhat anachronistic?  
> Maybe.  
> Am I concerned with this, considering how many other things in this story are anachronistic?  
> No, not especially.


	4. The benefits of tidy living

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In retrospect, I should have made the beginning of this chapter the end of the last chapter.  
> Oh well.

Thankfully they made it back to the house without incident, and without McGucket or his son appearing to have noticed they were gone, since they were still working on the automaton. Quickly Dipper and Mabel went inside, and hurried upstairs with their prize.

Dipper sat down cross-legged on his bed, with the book resting in his lap, and opened it again, with Mabel leaning her chin on his shoulder so she could read it too.

To his disappointment, most of the writing was all faded, or the ink had run together, so he could only pick out the occasional word. On the bright side, at least most of the artwork was still intact.

They flipped through the pages, marveling at all kinds of beautifully drawn images of fantastical creatures: something that looked like an owl with a cow’s face and an udder; a campfire with skinny legs and eyes; a strange duck-like creature with four legs and a plaid pattern on its coat. Some of the drawings had been scratched out; Dipper wondered if whoever had made them was just very critical of their own art.

The person who this used to belong to was also kind of sloppy, especially as they came close to the middle of the book; some of the pages had red-brown stains splattered all over them, eugh.

And then, halfway through, the pages just...stopped. There were just two final pages of writing, on one of which Dipper could make out one legible sentence, written in a hand that looked almost frantic: “ _ In Gravity Falls, there is no one you can trust. _ ”

He stared at it, wide-eyed, and brushed his thumb against the words.

“...No one you can trust…” he murmured aloud. And then the meaning behind the words sunk in a little. “Mabel, do you know what this means?”

“That whoever wrote this was kind of paranoid?” Mabel suggested.

“No!” Then he hesitated. “Well, maybe. But also that whoever wrote this was probably from around here! Maybe we can find them and-I dunno-give this back?” His voice trailed off as he realized how ridiculous that statement was, given the quality of the book and the fact that it had been stuffed in a tree for goodness-knows-how-long.

Mabel hummed thoughtfully-and then brightened. “Hey, Grunkle Ford and Mr. McGucket are both pretty old-maybe they’ll know who the author is!”

“The author of what?”

The children jumped, and whirled around to see their elusive grunkle standing in the doorway of their room...looking a little like he’d been in a fight or something.

His ridiculously thick hair had leaves and twigs sticking out of it, and there was a long scratch down the side of one cheek which actually had a trickle of dried blood, part of which had gotten smeared on his spectacles. His clothes were similarly torn up, with more red patches near the worst areas.

The twins both gaped at him.

“...Grunkle Ford, what  _ happened _ ?” Mabel finally asked.

Ford blinked, and then looked down at himself in realization. He gave them a sheepish smile. “Um-I-well, I miscalculated the strength of some of the local wildlife’s sense of smell. But don’t worry, I was able to eventually evade them,  _ and _ ensure that they wouldn’t be able to track me here, so we should all be relatively safe. As long as we don’t start hearing unexplained bluegrass music, there’s no need to fret.”

...Somehow this did not assuage the childrens’ concerns.

Ford seemed to realize that, as he coughed awkwardly and looked down towards the book in their hands.

“What do you have there?”

“We found this in the-” Dipper elbowed Mabel just in time- “yard. It’s an old book of some kind.”

Dipper got up and held the book up for Ford to see. “Have you ever seen someone with this before? We think whoever wrote it must have lived around here once upon a time, and-”

His words came to a halt when he saw Ford’s expression.

It was  _ that _ look again. The blank one, only somehow worse than it had been the first time they saw it.

Ford abruptly brought a hand up to the side of his head, squeezing his eyes shut and uttering a small groan.

“Grunkle Ford?!” Dipper dropped the book on the bed and hurried to his uncle’s side, putting a frantic hand on his arm. Mabel went to his other side, pulling him over to her own bed and pushing until he sat down.

“Are you okay? Do we need to get Tate?” She took a worried glance at his head-maybe the cut was deeper than they’d realized, or he had a worse injury, they’d heard about people whose heads would get hurt and then they’d suddenly drop de-

Ford’s eyes opened again, and he blinked dazedly.

“I-I’m sorry, children.” He gave them a somewhat confused smile. “What were we talking about?”

Dipper’s heart sank. He looked at Mabel worriedly over Ford’s shoulder, while his fingers tightened the smallest bit in his grunkle’s coat. She looked equally disturbed by this memory lapse or whatever it was, but she just squeezed Ford’s arm.

“...Do you need help cleaning up? You look like you got hurt real bad.”

Ford’s smile deepened into something a little warmer, and he gave her hand a reassuring pat.

“No, I-I’m all right, thank you. I just need a bath. It’s really not as bad as it looks.” He got up, and before they could protest, strode back out of their room.

Dipper sighed, and his shoulders drooped again.

“Well, back to square one.”

Mabel squeezed his shoulder. “Don’t worry, bro-bro. I’ll help you figure out who the Author of this thing was if it’s the last thing I do!”

Dipper wasn’t sure why she was investing herself so deeply in helping him with this mystery...but he’d be lying if he said he didn’t appreciate the enthusiasm.

Not least because the new project was helping him not think about things he didn’t want to think about.

* * *

After about a week in Gravity Falls, Dipper had noticed a number of strange things about the people he and his sister were living with now.

1) Grunkle Ford and McGucket both seemed to have an extreme aversion to the color yellow, especially when it appeared unexpectedly. On their third day here Mabel had come down wearing a hand-knitted sweater decorated to look like it was covered with buttercups, and Ford had seen her out of the corner of his eye and nearly shot her with his crossbow. And as they were both trying to calm down McGucket came in for breakfast, and as soon as he saw Mabel he let out a high-pitched shriek and actually threw a wrench at her before registering who she was. Both of them had apologized profusely, and clearly felt terrible about it, but ever since then both children had been careful to keep anything yellow out of their presence.

2) Grunkle Ford was not the only one with memory problems. McGucket’s weren’t quite as bad, but if he wasn’t working on an automaton, then often he seemed to just forget whatever he was doing unless someone else reminded him. Grunkle Ford mentioned offhandedly that his lapses had gotten a little better than they used to be, continuing his ongoing streak of providing information that he clearly meant to be reassuring yet made things just that bit more horrifying for the children.

3) Neither of them seemed to really have lives outside their work. To be fair, Tate mentioned that they didn’t quite fit in with the townsfolk of Gravity Falls and felt it easier to have him be the main errand-runner whenever they needed food or tools, but Dipper and Mabel would have been okay with that, if it had instead meant getting to spend a little more time with  _ them _ instead. Instead, though, McGucket was always working out in his shed (usually with a lot of explosions involved), and Grunkle Ford was always either in the woods or in his study with the request that he not be disturbed, and only spent long amounts of time with them when Tate forced him to stop working and eat something for cripes’ sake.

The last one was the one that bugged Dipper most, but he honestly didn’t know how to address it without sounding childish or selfish. Maybe he was just being unfair to them; after all, what they were doing was clearly important to them, and what did a dumb twelve-year-old like him know anyway?

So instead, he and Mabel would spend their time studying the journal (he’d concluded that was what it was, rather than a book, when he saw that some of the entries had dates scrawled nearby) for more clues about who it belonged to, in between helping Tate around the house; when they finally got the chance to ask Grunkle Ford if they could help tidy up his mess of papers he awkwardly conceded that maybe it would be an easier task if he had people helping him out, and Tate had been pleased that someone else was willing to try and keep things clean around here.

It turned out to be even more of a herculean task than they had expected.

Seemingly every room in the house had at least one scattering of Grunkle Ford’s work lying in a corner. And not all the papers that were in the same place were relevant to each other, as if he had started writing about one topic, lost interest, and gone on to another, before moving to another part of the house and suddenly remembering the first thing he’d been thinking about.

So for their first few days, Dipper and Mabel had their work cut out for them just gathering everything together and putting it in Ford’s study. Once they had done that, though, they were able to get started on sorting them more thoroughly.

This was even trickier, due to the endless number of topics Ford took an interest in studying, and the number of ways in which they overlapped and cross-referenced and sometimes got repeated or corrected by later papers-

Let’s just say that looking through them too long gave them headaches almost as bad as the ones Grunkle Ford always seemed to be getting. Even if Dipper did enjoy seeing information about all the strange creatures that he seemed to be so invested in studying, many of which seemed too fantastic to be real.

And then, one afternoon while they were sorting through the latest stack, Dipper stopped short as he pulled a paper into view.

It had a drawing at the top of what looked like a castle. Not anything really fancy, at least not compared to some of the castles he and Mabel had read about in books, but it still had turrets and the beginnings of a stone wall shaded in around it and looked all mysterious and cool.

Underneath it Ford had written, and then crossed out, the beginnings of a sentence:  ~~ I think I remember being here once ~~

Mabel looked over his shoulder. “Whoa. Grunkle Ford’s a really good artist.”

“I’ve seen this before.”

“Wait, what?”

Dipper pulled the journal from his vest pocket, and pulled it open, flipping to a page near the beginning.

Sure enough, there was a somewhat faded drawing of the exact same castle.

For a moment they stared at the two pages in stunned silence.

Then Dipper said determinedly, “We need to figure out where this place is. Maybe then we can get some answers.”

“And maybe if we go there we can find a magical talisman to help Grunkle Ford and McGucket with their memories or something!” Mabel chimed in.

Dipper gave her a look. “You’ve been reading too many fairy tales.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fingers crossed, hoping this whole idea doesn't come off as completely nonsensical. In part because I stayed up way too late working on it out of determination to get the dad-blamed thing finished.  
> Yes, I know I deserve the rolled-up newspaper to the head.


	5. Secrets and pies

That afternoon, when Tate set off towards town, the kids hurried outside after him.

“Can we come with you?” Mabel asked eagerly.

Tate seemed surprised, but at last gave a little nod. “If ya want. Probably a good idea for both of you ta get outta the house anyway.”

Mabel beamed, and slipped one of her hands into his, skipping along at his side as they headed down the path towards the main part of Gravity Falls.

For a while they walked in silence, aside from the crunching of their shoes in the dirt.

And then, out of the blue, Tate asked, “So, how you two settlin’ in?”

It was the first time since they arrived that they’d been asked that question; both children were a little surprised. Finally Dipper answered, “...We’re doing good. Thanks.”

“Yeah, we’re glad Grunkle Ford agreed to let us stay with him,” Mabel agreed. “This place is pretty cool.”

Tate nodded, and offered them one of his little half-smiles. But then he asked, more seriously, something else that was even more unexpected: “How about what happened? With your folks, I mean. How’re you handling that?”

Dipper had managed to mostly avoid thinking about that all week, except late at night when he was having trouble sleeping; hearing it be mentioned aloud by an adult was kind of like a sucker-punch to the chest. He was mortified to feel his eyes growing hot, and had to stop and blink the feeling back down. He could see that Mabel looked equally shocked by the question.

“You don’t haveta talk about it if ya don’t want to,” Tate said with unusual gentleness. “But if you decide you want to, and your uncle’s still got his head in his research so he doesn’t realize you want to, you can come talk to me. Kay?”

Dipper felt a sudden rush of tight anger in his chest. What did  _ he _ know about something like this, huh? What gave him the right to think he could-

“I lost my mom when I wasn’t much older than you,” the man’s voice interrupted his thoughts, as if he’d been reading them. “Me and Dad-neither of us ever really recovered from it.”

_...Oh. _

Even though he hadn’t said what he’d been thinking aloud, Dipper looked up at Tate apologetically. Tate just squeezed his shoulder, and the little group slowly resumed walking.

* * *

***

* * *

The town of Gravity Falls was just as small as Mabel remembered-everything looked more or less the same as it had been when they first arrived. And, as they wandered into the main shopping area, they could see a lot of the same people they remembered out on the streets, selling their wares and saying good morning to each other.

“Howdy, Tate!” the baker hollered after him as they walked past his shop, “Out runnin’ errands for the wizards again?”

“Yup. Just lookin’ for a place that sells eye of newt,” Tate muttered sarcastically.

The baker laughed, not in a very nice way, and went back to hocking his wares.

Tate glanced at the children, rubbing the back of his neck. “There’s a reason why I try to grow as much of our own food as possible.”

Mabel gave his hand a sympathetic squeeze, and stuck her tongue out at the baker when he wasn’t looking.

“So, what do we need to buy?” Dipper asked.

“Dad needs more oil for the automaton, and I was gonna get some pie for dinner.”

Mabel blinked. “Pie?”

“There’s one place left in town that’ll sell already-cooked meals to us at a decent price,” Tate said, pointing to a red building nearby. “Lazy Susan’s tavern. She makes the best pies in the world.” He dug a few coins out of his pocket and handed them over to her. “How about you go pick some up for me while I get the oil? This should be enough to get us two big ones, so there’ll be enough for everyone.”

“Really?” Mabel gave him one of her wide, crooked smiles.

Tate nodded. “I’ll meet you both back in front of the store when I’m done.”

Mabel made a delighted squeaking noise, and then grabbed Dipper’s hand, towing him off towards the tavern.

The inside was louder, and more crowded, than they’d been expecting; everywhere they turned people were talking, yelling, eating and singing-often one or two of those things at once.

The children tentatively slipped around a table where two men were arm wrestling, and another one where one man was shoveling pancakes into his mouth while the one next to him cheered him on, until they reached the main counter, where a woman whose eye seemed to be permanently shut was wiping the top with a dish towel.

“Um, excuse us?” Dipper piped up as best he could above the noise.

The woman looked over the counter at them, and her face lit up in a bright smile. The closer view allowed them to see that she had a name tag pinned to the front of her dress with “SUSAN” written on it in big block letters.

“Well, hello there, sweeties! What can I do for you?”

They each climbed up onto a stool, and placed the money on the counter.

“Two big pies, please. We got a reliable tip that you make the best kind in the world.”

Susan blushed, and waved a hand. “Oh, I wouldn’t say they’re the  _ best _ …” Then she leaned in close. “But if you wanna tell people that, I certainly won’t complain.” She lifted up her drooping eyelid, and then lowered it again. “Wink!”

Mabel giggled; she liked this lady’s style.

Susan accepted their coins and bustled off towards the back part of the kitchen; while she was gone, Dipper pulled out the journal and turned to the picture of the castle. He looked around the room, examining the different patrons and (Mabel suspected) trying to decide if any of them was a suitable candidate for asking about it. Whatever he saw didn’t seem to satisfy him, because his nose wrinkled and he muttered to himself in annoyance.

Susan suddenly returned, balancing two  _ enormous _ , delicious-looking pies whose smell alone was like music to Mabel’s nose, before setting them down on the counter in front of them. “What you got there, hun?” she asked Dipper curiously.

His expression brightened. “Oh, um, just wondering-have you ever heard anything about there being an old castle around here somewhere?”

Susan’s smile abruptly faded, and she made a small gesture like she was warding off the evil eye.

The kids looked at each other, and then back at her worriedly.

“...What?”

Susan sighed, leaning an arm on the counter. “There is a castle out in the woods somewhere, but trust me, hun, you don’t wanna go looking for it.”

“Why not?” Mabel asked.

“There’s all kindsa bad stories about that place.” She looked down uncomfortably. “They say that there’s people who’ve gone in to explore it, and never come out. Or that it used to belong to an insane wizard who did something horrible to that nice Mr. Pines who lives just outside of town, and now he has trouble remembering things.”

The niece and nephew of that nice Mr. Pines naturally felt their curiosity increase.

Susan shook herself, and pushed a lock of silver hair out of her face. “Either way, though, I don’t wanna hear about either of you going poking around looking for it, you hear me?” She shook a long-nailed finger at them. “You’re too young to be lost to such foolishness!”

Dipper smiled...but Mabel knew it wasn’t his sincere smile.

It was his “I’m definitely going to do that thing you just told me not to, but I’m going to smile and nod and pretend to agree with you so you won’t get upset with me” smile.

And despite the amount of danger they were probably going to get into, Mabel knew she was going to do the exact same thing.

There was a chance that going there would help Grunkle Ford with whatever was messing up his brain-and if nothing else, the thrill of the mystery was helping her get her brother back.

* * *

***

* * *

No, Dipper hadn’t forgotten about that creature he’d heard in the night, in case you were wondering.

It was kind of difficult to; there had been several nights when he was awakened by the sound of its cries echoing through the forest, and they never ceased to give him chills.

But, he mused as they headed back home after Tate came to collect them, he had only ever heard them at night, so perhaps the beast responsible for them was nocturnal. If that was the case, as long as he and Mabel searched for the castle during the day, and got back to their grunkle’s house before dark, they would have (comparatively) nothing to worry about.

And as he continued to think about it through the rest of the day, he developed some ideas about how to make it work.

Taking a page from one of the more intelligent fairy tales, he and Mabel spent some time gathering the brightest, most colorful rocks and pebbles that they could find and putting them in a bag, in case they needed to make a trail they could follow later.

Then, once they had an ample supply, Dipper climbed onto the roof of the house, high above the treeline, and scanned the forest for some sign of where this supposed castle might be.

To his disappointment he couldn’t see any turrets or signs of a wall, which would have been a big help...but he was able to make out a path.

It was connected to the road they had rode on to get to town in the first place, and now that he was seeing it from this high angle, he remembered that he’d actually noticed it on the way here in the first place.

It was a tiny little thing that branched off of the main road into the trees, which even then had struck him as kind of odd. And he remembered that there had been what looked like a broken-off signpost next to it.

It might be a bit of a long shot, but it was still a good place to start.

So the next morning, once Grunkle Ford had gone off to research and Tate and McGucket were distracted by working on their automaton, he and Mabel packed some leftover pie and a waterskin for lunch, and made their way down the road towards the mysterious path.

Oh yeah.

This was  _ definitely _ a good plan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Seriously, Hansel and Gretel is one of the few classic fairy tales in which the characters actually act intelligently for the most part.  
> Find out they're going to be abandoned in the woods to die? Leave a trail of pebbles so they can find their way home.  
> Find out the woman they've been staying with is actually a cannibal? Take advantage of her poor eyesight using a chicken bone so she won't realize her plan to fatten Hansel up is working.  
> Realize Gretel is going to be pushed into the oven? Trick the witch into sticking her head in so she can get pushed in instead.  
> And these are CHILDREN, for crying out loud, but they're STILL more sensible than, say, the original Snow White, who keeps forgetting that she's not supposed to let anyone in the house while the dwarves are gone and gets poisoned three times in a row by the same person!
> 
> ...This is a rant that could go on for ages if I don't cut myself off.
> 
> I know it might seem a little out of character for Dipper, of everyone in the Pines family, to be the one eagerly charging off into danger, but let us not forget who it was that went tearing off into the forest to catch an amazing attraction for the Shack armed with only a mace and chain, or who broke into a haunted convenience store just to impress a girl and her friends. Dipper can be quite the mad lad when he wants to be.


	6. Trespassers will be eaten

The children had to sneak past Susan’s tavern as they passed it, on the off chance that she might see them and ask awkward questions, but once that was done they hurried to the main path just outside Gravity Falls.

Once they got there, they wandered back down the path until they reached the spot where it branched off into the forest.

Unfortunately, there was no handy background music to tell them if this trail was safe or not. Just that old, broken signpost, which some wiseacre had decided to tie an old boot to.

The trail itself didn’t even look particularly menacing, at least no more than the rest of the forest. Whoever had written this story clearly had no concept of when to create a stereotypical dramatic atmosphere.

Mabel reached into her bag and pulled out a pebble, tossing it onto the ground in front of them.

“Whoa-no!” Dipper stopped her from pulling out another one. “We should save those for if we need to leave the path. That’s when we’re actually gonna need them.”

Mabel blinked, and then smiled at him sheepishly. “Oh. Right. Whoopsie.”

She pulled the bag a little more securely onto her shoulder, and then both of them, feeling butterflies of nervous excitement in their stomachs, set off down the path.

* * *

For what felt like an hour they wandered along, enjoying the way sunlight filtered through the trees and dappled the trail ahead of them, and the light breeze that rustled through their clothes and the ends of their hair. Once Mabel even saw a deer and two fawns stepping through the underbrush, and had to cover her mouth to suppress a few squeals of excitement. Dipper, without fully thinking about what he was doing, grabbed the journal and a pencil out of his vest pocket and tried to sketch them, but they moved away before he could finish.

They shared the pie when they got hungry, and agreed that even when it was cold, it really was the best pie they had ever eaten.

Despite his previous scorn for the idea, Dipper couldn’t help wondering if the castle, whenever they found it, would provide some kind of magical cure for Ford’s memory problems. Fantasies flitted through his head of their grateful uncle, having his mind restored to normal, taking them out on adventures in the forest with him; spying on strange creatures together and drawing sketches of them; telling stories about him and their grandpa when they were young; all of them sitting in front of a bonfire, with McGucket and his son, and telling ghost stories by the light of the full moon-

“Dipper!”

It took him a moment to realize that Mabel had been saying his name, with increasing urgency, and tugging his sleeve.

It took him another moment to realize why she’d been doing this: there was a strange sound echoing through the trees. Specifically, music.

Music that sounded a lot like one of the tunes McGucket had strummed on his banjo one evening when he was in a good mood.

Yes, I’m sure you all realize by now that it was the sound of bluegrass music.

“Where’s it coming from?” Dipper asked frantically, twisting his head back and forth.

“I can’t tell!” Mabel pulled another rock out of her bag and wielded it threateningly over her head; she slowly stepped around until she and Dipper were back to back.

Dipper could feel his heart starting to pound in his ears, and his palms sweating even more than usual.

 _Grunkle Ford ran into whatever those were, and he barely escaped with his life! And he’s a full-grown man with actual muscles! What chance have_ we _got against them?!_

And then he let out a frightened squeak when a dark figure stepped out onto the path right in front of them.

In shape, it looked more or less like a poverty-stricken man-or kind of like McGucket, since it had on the same kind of big crooked hat and filthy overalls. Though McGucket’s overalls were filthy because they were always covered in oil and grease and ash, and these were covered in...lots of dark red-brown stains that Dipper didn’t want to think about too hard.

Nobody in their right mind, though, would mistake this creature for a human. It had tufts of dark fur sticking up along its arms and covering the tops of its bare feet, and its face was absolutely covered in the stuff. The only features that could be clearly discerned were its big glowing eyes, and a wide mouth filled with long, sharp-looking teeth which was currently grinning at them.

After a second it let out a few deep hooting, grunting noises, and slapped its hands against its knees and elbows in an oddly rhythmic fashion.

Mabel gasped, and her back pressed against Dipper’s a little more tightly; he glanced behind them, and saw that another one of these things had stepped into view, blocking their escape from that direction.

...He would say that things couldn’t get much worse than this, but saying that was usually when the universe liked to prove you wrong.

“What _are_ those?!” Mabel whispered.

“How do _I_ know?!” Dipper hissed back. “I’ve never seen things like this in my life!”

The hill man in front of him hooted again, and took a step forward, fingers twitching eagerly. Saliva dripped from the ends of its fangs, and its long tongue snaked out and ran over them.

And then Mabel swung her arm.

There was a loud _thunk_ , and the hill man behind them staggered backwards, clutching its forehead, as a pebble fell to the ground.

“RUN!!!!”

Mabel seized Dipper’s arm, and together they took off into the trees.

* * *

They could hear the angry hoots and grunts of the hill men coming after them, as well as the swift padding of their feet, moving with far more elegance and grace than they were capable of, as it was all they could do not to get tripped up by roots and branches.

Periodically Mabel would whirl around and hurl another pebble after them, accompanied by a defiant war cry every time she managed to land a good hit. Unfortunately, the time she took to stop also meant that the creatures kept gaining on them, and Dipper knew their supply wouldn’t last forever.

 _Please please please we need some way to escape or hide,_ anything _-_

Up ahead, he saw a flash of red, and without really thinking about it was drawn towards it.

They dodged around a giant oak tree, and found themselves standing in front of the biggest, stoniest wall they had ever seen-and a little to the left of them, where the red had been, there was a cracked part-just barely big enough for an animal, or two small children, to slip through.

He didn’t hesitate; he just lunged for it, pulling Mabel with him.

It was a bit of a tight squeeze, but they both managed it. Mabel dodged out of one hill man’s grasp just in time, and they both collapsed to the ground in exhaustion, as infuriated howls rang in the air behind them.

For several minutes the children just tried to get their breath back, and let their racing hearts settle.

Dipper rolled over onto his back, clutching his chest with one tiny hand.

“Well-” he wheezed out at last, “that was-more excitement-than I expected. Maybe-we should-go home now.” Assuming they could find the path again, or that the hill men or whatever they were had given up and gone away.

Mabel didn’t answer.

“...Mabel?”

He tilted his head to the side-and saw that she was sitting up, and staring at something with wide eyes.

“Dipper, _look_.”

He pushed himself up, and twisted around-and finally saw what she was seeing.

...It had to be the castle in the journal.

There was no way this forest was big enough to hide _two_ hidden castles, right?

But it was not quite the same as the drawing-either version.

For one thing, the high stone sides and roof were overgrown with ivy, vines and all other types of plants, until it looked like it was being strangled by nature.

It was crumbling apart here and there, with parts of it actually lying on the ground in front of them.

It didn’t look as though it had been inhabited in years.

Dipper felt a little chill as he got to his feet, the better to examine the castle more closely.

“Dang…” Mabel whispered, standing up too.

A few seconds later, she shivered as a drop of rain landed on her nose.

Neither of them had noticed how gray the sky was getting, but they began to realize it now, as a crack of thunder rolled through the air.

There was nothing else for it: as dark and creepy-looking as this castle was, it was also the only source of shelter available to them right now.

The children hurried towards it.

They only paused a little bit when they saw that there had once been a set of impressive double doors at the entrance, but one of them had partially been ripped off its hinges and now the bottom half lay crumpled on the ground; they just slipped under the other half, barely in time to avoid the sudden downpour outside.

* * *

The inside hallway was not much better than the outside; the floor was covered in a scattering of dead leaves (at least that’s what Dipper _hoped_ they were, it was a little too dark to see), and he ended up walking face first into a cluster of cobwebs that he had to spend a minute spitting out.

“Hold on.” He heard Mabel rummaging around in her bag, and then there was a _sssskritch_ noise before a tiny flame came into view.

Mabel quickly touched the match to a small stub of candle, and held it up to take a look around.

The room they’d come into was a lot bigger than they’d first realized, with a high, ridged ceiling, and up ahead there was a long, curved staircase covered in a decaying carpet. Dipper’s eyes followed it upwards-and for a moment he thought he saw a figure standing at the top of the staircase, far too big to be a normal human.

He staggered back with a yelp-but when he looked again, there was nothing there.

“Dipper?! What’s wrong?!” Mabel asked anxiously.

“N-nothing. Just...my mind playing tricks on me.” He smiled at her weakly.

Mabel squeezed Dipper’s shoulder, and then tilted the candle so the melting wax would run onto the floor, instead of on her hand.

“Well-” Dipper cleared his throat- “we came here looking for answers, so we might as well start searching.”

He tried not to tremble as thunder rumbled overhead again.

They slowly wandered, hand in hand, further into the depths of the castle. The rest of the ground floor was just as big of a mess as the main hallway had been; Dipper’s nervousness was not improved by the sight of animal tracks here and there, or the remains of a clawed tapestry in one corner.

 _Do it for Grunkle Ford,_ he reminded himself. _He needs this._

The reminder gave him a small measure of extra courage, and as time passed and nothing bad happened it grew in confidence.

Despite that, none of the rooms they peeked in provided anything in the way of answers, mystical or otherwise, about what this place had to do with Grunkle Ford. They were mostly empty, save for more leaves, dust and spiders.

Eventually, though, they found a room with an old, moth-eaten sofa, and a massive fireplace with some old chunks of wood in it. Mabel used her candle to put together a little fire, and they sat down on the sofa to enjoy the warmth.

“...Some day, huh?” Mabel finally asked, taking a drink from their waterskin and passing it to him.

Dipper snorted and gulped down a bit for himself. “No kidding.”

“But at least we finally found this place, right?”

“Yeah...but so far it seems like it’s a bust.”

Mabel sighed, and brushed some hair out of her face. “Try looking in the journal again.”

“Good idea.”

Dipper pulled the book into view, and opened it-

-and couldn’t believe his eyes.

The page with the picture of the castle on it had changed: namely, the words written underneath it, which had been as faded and illegible as the rest of the book, were standing out clear and black.

_My New Home_

_Father has begrudgingly permitted me to come here, and use this old castle as a place where I can pursue my studies in peace. I’m sure that Mother is the one behind that, considering how much he wanted me to stay home and somehow help our family climb further up the social ladder, despite my expressed lack of interest in doing so. And even she seems to think that it’s just a phase I’m going through that will eventually pass if they just indulge me a little._

_No one in our family seems to care about what I want._ ~~_No one except_ ~~

_It’s not far from a quaint little village called Gravity Falls, where I can go if I need supplies. However, I intend to be as self-sustaining as possible, so I can research the strange creatures of this forest undisturbed! Perhaps I should try my hand at gardening…_

Dipper gawked at the page in disbelief.

How was this possible?

“...Hey, wait a minute.” Mabel looked down at the journal with a frown. “Doesn’t that handwriting look a little like-”

And then the children received their second collective heart attack of the day, when a massive gray paw reached between them and snatched the journal from Dipper’s lap.

Dipper spun around-and his throat was too closed up with terror for him to even scream, at the sight of what was looming over them, hefting the book.

A deep, gravelly voice rumbled, perfectly accompanied by a flash of lightning from outside, “ _This_ doesn’t belong ta you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, what do you know-looks like I know when to create a stereotypical dramatic atmosphere after all.


	7. Search and rescue (hopefully)

For Ford, the day began just like any other day.

Wake up at the crack of dawn, do some research until the children were awake and Tate called him down for breakfast, then head out into the woods to study the latest anomaly that had caught his interest.

He had to admit, researching had become a lot easier now that the children had finally made some headway in organizing his notes; he no longer had to try and remember what he had already written down or make a futile attempt to search every room in the house for it to double-check, he could just grab the pages that referred to a specific creature or group of creatures and take them along, adding little extra scribblings as needed. He was even amused by Mabel’s habit of tying them together like parcels with pieces of multicolored yarn, or drawing little hearts around pictures of creatures she found particularly adorable (not very scientific, but he found himself oddly looking forward to seeing them).

Today Ford was watching a herd of cervitaurs, creatures that were half-man, half-deer, which were grazing and playing together in a nearby meadow.

He smiled as he watched two of the bucks raking their antlers together, clearly fighting for the attention of a nearby doe who seemed more interested in munching the leaves of a nearby tree. Nearby, a nervous fawn, which oddly reminded him of Dipper, skipped back and forth on his hooves as he watched the battle; his little fists were clenched in excitement, and Ford wondered which of the bucks he was rooting for.

The fighting ended when the bucks noticed that the doe had wandered off to the other side of the meadow, and was grazing with a group of other does. They both looked a little crestfallen, and sheepishly turned and knocked their heads together more affectionately this time, before sitting down side by side and starting to groom each other.

_ Some things are the same no matter what species you are. _

He only decided to stop for the day when thunder began rumbling overhead, and the skittish deer folk began heading for the shelter of the trees.

Ford hurriedly stuffed the precious pages into the inside of his coat, turned up his collar, and began making his way home.

* * *

It occurred to him that he was going to be back earlier than usual; perhaps that meant he could actually contribute to the twins’ work in organizing his papers! They’d been surprisingly efficient for twelve-year-olds, but he needed to figure out a better way to organize the cross-references-maybe some sort of filing system? Maybe he ought to make copies of the notes that corresponded to two different anomalies, so then he could-

“DIPPER! MABEL!”

Ford stopped short.

That was Tate’s voice.

Why on earth was Tate yelling at the children? Had they done something-

“DIPPER! MABEL!”

...That didn’t sound like angry yelling, actually. It sounded more like he was calling  _ for _ them, like-

A sudden cold feeling rushed down Ford’s spine, and he jogged the rest of the way to the house.

The first thing he saw was Fiddleford, rushing out of the forest and absentmindedly brushing a clump of leaves out of his beard. When he saw Ford, he half-galloped to his side.

“Stanford! Are the kids with ya?!”

The cold feeling grew.

“What-no, I-I haven’t seen them since this morning! What are you-!”

Fiddleford turned white, and tugged the sides of his hat down over his ears, before doing a little nervous jig while standing in place.

“Oh banjo polish, this is  _ bad _ !”

Tate came clumping out of the house, and when he saw them he rushed over.

“They’re not anywhere in the house-not even any of the crawlspaces.”

Ford’s stomach curdled with worry and horror-that quickly turned themselves into anger.

“Why didn’t you two keep a closer watch on them?!” he demanded. “You’re both here all day anyway, you should have been making sure they didn’t go running off like this-”

Fiddleford shrank back, gibbering a little and tugging on the end of his beard-but Tate just turned red, and snarled back, “Maybe it’s because they’re not  _ our _ responsibility! They’re YOURS!”

Ford recoiled at the silent accusation.

For a moment they just stood there glaring at each other (as best he could tell, since Tate’s eyes were  _ still _ hidden under his hat).

Then Tate turned away and muttered, “Let’s just go look for ‘em. They can’t have gone far, maybe they just went down ta the village or something.”

He went stomping off, his boots leaving deep grooves in the earth as he marched.

Fiddleford put a tentative hand on Ford’s arm.

“...He didn’t mean that. He’s jes’ worried ‘bout the kidlets, same as you.”

Ford didn’t answer, not even with the thought that crossed his mind:  _ He’s not exactly  _ wrong _ , though. _

* * *

They decided to split up. Tate would ask around in the village, since people were more likely to talk to him; Fiddleford would fire up his best-functioning automaton and search the forest behind the house; and Ford would head down to the road on the off chance that they had decided to go-

But where on earth would they have gone, if they’d decided to head that way?

A little part of Ford wondered if maybe they were homesick, and had decided to try and make it back to their old town. If so, that seemed like an incredibly foolish idea; based on the letter he’d received, they wouldn’t exactly be welcomed back, even if they managed to survive such a long trip on their own. Most of the people there were still picking up the pieces of their lives before the plague struck, and had no room to accommodate a pair of still-very-young children. Their old house might not even be standing, or if it was, most likely someone else had claimed it for themselves by now.

_ But what if they  _ did  _ decide to go back? _

_ Is it my fault? _

_ Was I too neglectful? _

_ Did I do something to upset them? _

The possibility made a sick feeling rise in Ford’s stomach, and he decided that when he found the children, they were going to have a  _ very _ long talk.

After he grounded them for the rest of their childhoods for frightening him like this.

Ford was about to head down the main road, since that seemed like the most logical route, when something bright caught his attention in the corner of his eye.

He twisted his head in that direction-and saw the side path.

Specifically, the large, shiny pebble lying there, where no such pebble had a right to be.

It felt like kind of a long shot, but Ford cautiously approached, and knelt to pick it up.

It was an average piece of granite, worn down by time and erosion until it was smooth and rounded at the sides, with a few flecks of mica that sparkled here and there. It also had a slight spatter of bright blue paint along one side.

There was only one person Ford knew who seemed to be consistently covered in paint, or other crafty substances that seemed to smear everywhere no matter what, and his mouth went dry at the thought that she and her brother must have come this way.

Especially because it was getting colder, and starting to rain, and he was pretty sure this was a part of KillBilly territory-

Ford shoved the pebble into his pocket, and drew his crossbow as he rushed onto the trail.

He could feel the back of his head throbbing again, pounding in rhythm with his footsteps, but the fear over what might be happening to Dipper and Mabel, or what  _ would  _ happen if he didn’t find them in time (a hundred horrifying possibilities were running through his brain), outweighed the pain.

Ford kept his eyes peeled for any signs of blue (for Dipper) or extremely colorful (for Mabel) cloth, and occasionally he’d pause in his footsteps and call their names.

But he didn’t stop or turn back, not even when it began raining in earnest.

It rapidly became harder and harder for Ford to see, as rain splattered across his glasses and misted them up. He just ran his fingers over them, or occasionally tried to wipe them on his soaked sweater, which wasn’t all that helpful but still better than nothing. The problem was that as he ran, many times he thought he would see movement nearby, but more often than not it turned out to be just a droplet of water sliding down his lenses.

Other times it was just trees being pulled back and forth by the storm, or once even a flock of startled birds that had no idea how close they came to getting themselves shot when they burst into the air right in front of Ford.

A small voice in the back of his head attempted to point out that he was no good to the children when he was wandering around the forest practically blind, and a more prudent approach would be to turn back and find Fiddleford and Tate and tell them that he’d found where the children had gone so they could all search together.

The rest of him slammed the idea down on the grounds that he’d come too far to turn back now, and the children might not be able to afford that kind of time.

As intelligent and (probably) resourceful as he’d seen they were, in the brief amounts of time he’d spent with them, they were still just children who were unfamiliar with this part of the forest.

He needed to find them  _ now _ .

And then, as he stomped through a particularly muddy part of the path, the toe of his boot kicked another pebble.

Ford knelt, and scooped it up, cleaning his glasses again with his other hand and squinting at it.

It was the same kind as he’d found earlier.

He couldn’t tell if there was any paint on it this time, but it was too much of a coincidence to be a coincidence.

Ford got to his feet and scanned either side of the trail eagerly-and managed to lay eyes on another pebble, lying in the brush off to his left.

_ Bravo, children. Clearly you know your fairy tales. Even if you are now also grounded for straying from the path. _

He stepped off the path to follow this new trail.

* * *

The pebbles were somewhat erratic in their frequency, but at least they gave him somewhere to go.

Ford barely noticed the way the pounding in his head was getting worse, or the way his thoughts were starting to fog around the edges, because at least the most important one was still in force:  _ Find the children. Dipper and Mabel are in danger. _

He barely even noticed that some of his thoughts had been about how this place seemed vaguely...familiar.

At least until he found the wall.

When he stepped around a particularly large tree and laid eyes on it, the throbbing in Ford’s head reached a fever pitch, sending him to his knees with a hoarse cry as he clutched at his scalp.

It felt as though rocks were rolling around in his brain, smashing into each other with reckless abandon and threatening to break his head apart. Never- _ never _ had it been this painful before, he had to-

Needed-

What had Ford been-

His thoughts felt as though they were covered in syrup, so he could barely get one of them to manifest freely for long before it was sucked back down into the goop.

He-he was out alone in the rain, letting himself get soaked as he knelt in the mud.

What was he doing out here?

Dazedly Ford got to his feet, picking up his crossbow with one hand and rubbing at his still aching forehead.

...He should go back home. Tate and Fiddleford were probably worried about him, wondering what “that idjit” had gotten up to this time, they were going to give him an earful wandering around in the woods all by himself during a storm. And perhaps Dipper and Mabel were worried too-

Wait.

Dipper. Mabel.

The headache began to shriek with life again, but this time Ford stubbornly pushed through it.

Dipper and Mabel were out here somewhere, that’s why he was here. And he was pretty sure they were on the other side of this-

He forced himself to look, to ignore the agony.

This  _ wall _ .

This oddly familiar stone wall.

He didn’t know how or why he recognized it, but he stepped towards it, even as his eyes watered with the pain, and followed it until he found a gate, which at some point had had something enormous smash into the top of it so that the metal was bent almost in half.

Ford reached out, with an effort, and put a hand on it, pulling until it moved just enough for him to stagger inside.

Immediately he was pitched to the ground again, and for one horrifying moment the inside of his head was so overwhelmed with pain that he was sure he was about to die-

* * *

And then, just like that, it stopped.

* * *

For a moment Ford lay there, trying to understand what had just happened, while rain pattered on the back of his head and back and wet grass brushed against his face.

Then he lifted himself back up on his arms, and took a look at the ruins of the castle standing before him.

There was a light of some kind flickering in one of the upper windows of the tower.

And he didn’t know how, but he knew that he knew this place too.

A determined glare settled on Ford’s face, and he got to his feet again, before marching towards the broken-down front door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've worn glasses while out in the rain many times.  
> The struggle is real.


	8. Ford makes a deal with a monster (surprising: no one)

The entryway was bathed in shadows when Ford stepped inside.

Even less fortunately, he had yet again forgotten to bring matches with him, despite how often Fiddleford reminded him of that time when they’d gone exploring in an underground cave and been temporarily lost in the darkness. After that, for the longest time Fiddleford had stuffed a matchbox into his coat pocket whenever he left the castle-

Ford blinked.

_ Wait. Did-did I remember that correctly? _

_...It feels like I did. But-how-surely I meant the house- _

He didn’t push the thought away, exactly...but he put it to the back of his mind to focus on later. 

Ford took the opportunity to try cleaning his glasses again, as he waited for his eyes to adjust to the darkness.

His sweater was still damp-and awfully cold, he was now realizing-but he managed to find a dry spot where it had been covered by his overcoat, and clean most of the water off his lenses before slipping them back on.

And immediately he let out a startled yell when something darted past his legs into the darkness.

Ford had even grabbed up his crossbow again and started to aim, before he realized that it was just a fox.

_ Interesting. I wonder if it’s just here seeking shelter, or this is its home. _

His eyes had adjusted enough for him to see the tip of its tail as it headed for the stairs, scrambling upward into the darkness.

Upwards, he realized, was where the light had been coming from.

Ford squared his shoulders and headed for the stairs.

They were very long and winding for the most part, and he had to step carefully because the mortar was no longer thick around some of the stones. Also, every sound he heard made the shortest, least-floofy hairs on the back of his neck prickle, and all the different possibilities of creatures (living or otherwise) it could be had him wishing he’d brought one of his all-purpose monster defense packs.

Nervously he shouldered his crossbow again, as he at last stepped onto the floor he thought he’d seen the light burning on. As best he could make out, there was a hallway before him, with a row of filthy doors on each side, some of which appeared to have been broken in. When Ford saw it, that feeling rose up again-the one that said this was familiar to him somehow. Except that this wasn’t right; there were supposed to be lamps set in the walls next to the doors, and they were supposed to be painted clean and white, with numbers on them for cataloguing-

His head pounded a little with a familiar headache, but it was weaker than it had ever been when he had one of these odd memory flashes before. And this time, the memory didn’t disappear altogether, it just...faded a little.

Ford rubbed his temple, and decided to worry about what it all meant later.

“Dipper? Mabel? Are you up here?”

For a moment, there was no answer.

Then, just as he was turning to try the next flight of stairs, a familiar voice, sounding far more pitiful and frightened than he had ever heard it, called back, “G-Grunkle Ford? Is that you? Help! We’re in here!”

* * *

Fiddleford had been right after all, Ford realized. There was no sound in the world more terrifying than that of your child calling you for help. It trumped “angry gremloblin awakening from a nap” and “nails on a chalkboard,” one hundred percent.

“Keep talking to me!” he called back, as he rushed into the hallway. “It will be easier to find you if I can follow your voice!” Then, with a flood of new worry at the realization that Mabel’s was the only voice he was hearing, “Where’s Dipper?!”

“He’s here!” Mabel reassured him, “He’s been trying to figure out a way to break the bars so we can escape out the window, but there’s no furniture in here, all we got is a few rugs and the fireplace, and he was thinking about trying to break it with a coal but he’d probably burn his hand if he tried, so he’s been trying to pry one of the stones out of the wall-”

Ford had finally found what seemed like the right door: it was the only one with a chain latch holding it shut from the outside. That chill of terror came back with a vengeance, as he wondered who or what had been responsible for locking it. Regardless, he quickly unhooked the latch and threw the door open.

As Mabel had said, the room was almost bare, save for a small fireplace which had an even smaller fire burning in it, and a pile of moth-eaten rugs which had been curled in front of it as a sort-of nest.

There were bars on the window, set in a gridlocked pattern that couldn’t be broken free easily, the better to keep...something in, Ford thought he sort-of remembered again.

And now, running towards him with expressions that were equal parts tear-stained and relieved, were the very children he’d been looking for.

This time both of them hurled themselves at him, burying their faces in his coat and clinging for dear life. Without thinking about what he was doing Ford wrapped his arms around them just as tight.

It occurred to him that it was the first hug he’d received in...far too long.

Dipper was the first to pull back.

“We need to get out of here now!” he squeaked, voice cracking. “He’s gonna come back any second, and he said he needed time to decide what to do with us!”

“Who?!” Ford demanded. Instantly the fear returned-but this time it was joined by the burn of anger, at the realization that someone had been  _ terrorizing  _ and  _ threatening  _ his children. Someone who, if he ran into them, was about to find out what happened if you went after-

“Ya lookin’ for me?”

* * *

In one fluid motion Ford spun around, crossbow raised and pointed at the hulking figure that was standing in the shadows. All he could see of it was the faint gleam of its eyes, reflected in the firelight of the room behind them.

“Show yourself!” he demanded, putting his finger on the trigger.

“...And give ya a better target ta aim at? Yeah, I don’t think so.” The figure made no effort to step closer.

Ford clenched his jaw. “You are in no position to be uncooperative!”

“Oh, and you are?” There was a dark laugh that echoed through the corridor. “Pretty sure  _ I’m  _ the one who’s got a right ta be upset that some yahoo’s breakin’ inta my house and threatenin’ me with a crossbow.”

“I’m  _ here _ to rescue these children that you  _ kidnapped _ !” Ford snapped.

“I didn’t kidnap jack!” The figure made a sound that bore a disturbing resemblance to a snarl. “I’m punishing a couple o’ trespassers who I caught wanderin’ on my property!”

“We  _ told  _ you, we didn’t know anyone lived here!” Mabel protested, peering around Ford. “We just needed shelter from the storm, and-and we got attacked by some kind of crazy hill people-”

“KillBillies,” Ford corrected automatically, even as his stomach lurched with the thought that the children had been chased by those monstrosities.

“Oh, is that what they’re called? We didn’t know.” She turned back to their kidnapper-sorry, maybe  _ hostage taker _ was more appropriate. “And we were trying to escape them and wound up here by accident! We weren’t trying to trespass!”

“Yeah, that’s what they all say.” The figure gave an indifferent shrug. “Either way, you came here and messed with my stuff, so now you gotta pay the price.”

“I think not.” Ford stepped forward, aiming at the dark form. He might not get in a fatal shot if he couldn’t see it properly, but it was so big that he at least wouldn’t be able to miss hitting  _ something _ . “I’m going to take the children and leave, right now, and if you try to stop us-”

And suddenly there was a shrill animal’s cry right under his feet, as he tripped over something that had been in his path and the crossbow fumbled right out of his hands.

He barely had time to register that it was that fox again, before it lunged forward and sank its teeth into his arm as he tried to grab the crossbow. A second later an enormous, clawed foot had slammed down onto the weapon, both smashing it and pulling it back out of reach.

“Nice work,” the figure said. It took Ford a moment to realize that he (possibly? The voice was deep and gravelly enough to sound male) had been addressing the fox, which released his arm and sat back on its haunches with an oddly pleased expression. But then his attention was drawn back to the creature...and as he looked up at it, his mouth dropped open in shock.

“...What  _ are _ you?”

It was a valid question.

In all his years studying the forest that surrounded Gravity Falls and its unique inhabitants, Ford had  _ never _ seen a creature like the one that was now standing close enough for him to get a good look.

It- _ he _ -was easily seven feet tall, and covered in long, thick gray fur, which upon closer inspection, as Ford slowly got to his feet, appeared to have darker gray stripes, like a tiger’s. In fact, as a whole the beast looked like a large, bipedal tiger, but perhaps with some pieces of a bear or a wolf in the shape of the face. He had some tattered black strips of cloth that might once have been clothes draped here and there on his body, and was leaning one paw on a cane with a large black knob on the top. Behind him, a large tail swished back and forth a few inches above the floor.

Despite himself, Ford was fascinated.

The beast’s ears flattened against his head, and his eyes narrowed, as the beginnings of a growl rumbled in his chest.

“You sure know how ta make a guy feel special, huh.”

Ford barely heard the comment; he was too busy twisting his head from side to side, marveling at what he was seeing.

“You can obviously walk on your hind legs, but from the way they’re bent it seems like you can also be a quadruped if you want to! Isn’t that interesting?” His eyes landed on the paw gripping the cane. “And your paws have opposable thumbs, even though from a scientific point of view there would be no need for such a step in your species’s evolution! You’re a walking contradiction!”

The beast glanced at the children, who had hesitantly edged into the corridor behind Ford. “Are his social skills always this good?”

Despite himself, Dipper shrugged and admitted, “Yeah, pretty much.”

That drew Ford’s attention back to business.

_ Right. Children being threatened by beast. Focus. _

He cleared his throat awkwardly. “...As interesting of a creature as you are, I’m afraid that I can’t just let you make these children your prisoners.” Even though he was painfully aware that he no longer had the leverage to enforce this, having lost his weapon thanks to the treacherous vulpine still sitting at its master’s feet.

The beast snorted, and looked almost amused at his continued defiance. “Hey, from where I’m standing I’m bein’ pretty merciful. If it was me breakin’ into  _ your  _ house, you’d probably have half the countryside comin’ after me with torches and pitchforks already. I was just gonna put ‘em ta work for a few months.”

...Put like that, it didn’t sound all that unreasonable.

All the same, he felt the need to correct, “I would  _ not _ have half the countryside coming after you! I would come after you all by myself!”

“Gee thanks, that makes me feel  _ so _ much better.”

Before Ford could think of a suitable retort, the beast reached out one massive paw and grabbed him by the back of his coat, lifting him off the floor. “Now, if we’ve got that all hashed out, you better say your goodbyes ta these two, and make ‘em quick.”

He turned Ford to face the children, both of whom were staring at him in horror-and, he realized, pleading. 

And he heard himself say, “Let me stay here with them.”

The beast froze. “Wait, what?”

Ford’s mind raced. “I can see we’re not going to change your mind about having them stay and work off their supposed-”

The beast growled, and he quickly backtracked.

“-their debt to you, so let me stay and help them with whatever it is you want done. It’s an even better deal that way, because then you get three workers instead of just two.”

The beast rubbed his chin with the knob of his cane thoughtfully, looking up at the ceiling (which the top of his head was close to brushing against anyway). Then his eyes darted back to Ford.

“I dunno...that’d also mean having an extra mouth ta feed, and you’re not exactly a spring chicken-”

“Please!” It galled Ford to beg, but he’d tried everything else. “They’re my family! They-” sudden, cold realization set in- “...they’re all I have left.”

To his surprise, something about that seemed to strike a chord with the beast. He let out a soft exhale, and his eyes darted towards the floor uncertainly.

Then, at last, he let out a noise of disgust and dropped Ford to the floor.

“Fine, whatever.” He started to turn away, before rounding on Ford again. “But you better not try ta leave before I say, cuz I got all your scents now, and there’s  _ nowhere _ you can run to that I won’t find you. Ya got that?!”

Ford swallowed, and glanced at the children. They looked more than a little freaked out by this whole situation, but they nodded at him bravely. He turned back to the beast, and offered his hand.

“You have my word.”

The beast blinked, and then reached out and closed his paw around Ford’s hand, giving it a softer squeeze than he’d been expecting. The tips of his claws pricked lightly at the skin at the back of his hand before the beast let go.

“Kitchen’s downstairs if you’re hungry.”

And with that he loped off towards the stairs, with the fox at his heels.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Coming up next: our first look into Beast!Stan's POV.


	9. A new room, and a BFD

_ What the heck did I just agree to?! _

As soon as he was out of earshot and eyeshot, on the top floor of the castle, the beast slumped back against the wall and ran his claws through his head fur and wondered at exactly what point he had completely lost his mind.

_ There are  _ people  _ in my castle! And I just told them they gotta  _ stay _ here! Hot Belgian waffles, I shoulda just thrown the kids out and told ‘em never ta come back, this is getting out of control- _

_ Except there really are KillBillies out there, and nobody deserves ta die like that. _

_...Well, except maybe one or two jerks I can think of. But that’s not the point! _

The beast decided that part of it was the old guy’s fault.

He didn’t know why, but something about him  _ really _ got under his skin and made him feel even crankier than usual, and when he was cranky he was more likely to make dumb decisions.

He thought it was the way the geezer had just marched in here and started making demands at him; as well as he could remember, the beast had never liked people trying to tell him what to do. Especially not ones who talked with that stupid superior tone of voice, or who thought they were better than him just cuz they were human and he wasn’t,  _ grrrrr- _

And yet.

And yet there’d been something oddly...refreshing, in how the old guy acted when he saw him for real.

The way he’d just stared at him with interest, instead of fear or disgust, and started spouting off a lot of lingo that the beast hadn’t been able to entirely follow, but sounded like a bunch of scientific stuff that was kinda-sorta like praise.

It reminded him of-

Of-

Okay, he didn’t know  _ what _ , exactly, it reminded him of, but it was the same thing as when he saw the book those kids had been carrying around, which was now safely secured in his lair for him to take a look at later. He didn’t know  _ why _ he wanted it, or  _ how  _ he knew it didn’t belong to them, but he knew it had to do with something important. Probably whatever it was that kept giving him headaches whenever he tried to think about it.

Also, it had been so long since he’d heard the sound of another voice besides his own...

Something tugged on his sleeve, and the beast finally realized that Wendy was trying to get his attention, probably had been for a while now.

The little fox tilted her head when he looked down at her, and gave him a somewhat reproachful stare.

The beast shrugged his shoulders and sighed.

“Yeah, I know. But what’d ya want me ta do? I-If I’d thrown him out, he probably woulda just gathered up a mob or something and stormed the castle. Seemed better ta just let him stay for now.”

Wendy tilted her head, and her green eyes crinkled in her best imitation of a knowing smile.

“Wipe that look off your face,” the beast growled. “I know what you’re thinkin’, and it’s not like that! I am  _ not _ getting soft!”

Wendy dipped her nose down in pretend contrition; he just flicked the end of it with the tips of his claws and then got to his feet.

“C’mon, let’s see if there’s any rooms we can stick ‘em in. An’ we better do it quickly, before Soos finds out we got guests-”

Down below, they heard a loud “ROOOO!!!!” followed by startled yells, and a loud thud.

The beast groaned into his paw.

“Too late.”

* * *

***

* * *

After the beast left, Dipper and Mabel instantly latched on to Ford, grabbing his hands like they were much younger children. Even Dipper was too anxious for some kind of security in this new and scary situation to be embarrassed about his clinginess.

“Grunkle Ford, did you just make a deal with a monster?” he asked when he found his voice.

Ford looked down at him in surprise. “...Yes, I suppose I did.” His hand curled a little more securely around Dipper’s.

“...Is it bad that I kind of wanna pet him?” Mabel asked, looking in the direction that the beast had gone.

The other two stared at her.

“I...would not advise it,” Ford said at last. “Something tells me that he would not appreciate it.”

She pouted. “But he’s so  _ fluffy _ !”

“He also has fangs that look like they could rip your arm off in one bite,” Dipper felt obligated to point out.

“Ugh,  _ fine _ . I’ll see if I can pet the fox instead the next time I see it.”

Ford changed the subject. “Why did you two wander out here in the first place? Especially when I  _ told _ you not to go into the forest alone?”

Dipper flinched guiltily. He’d...been kind of hoping Ford wouldn’t remember that.

Mabel was less intimidated by getting in trouble. “We found a picture of this place in your notes, and in an old book we found, and thought maybe if we came here we could find out why your memory’s all messed up and fix it!”

“Mabel!” Dipper hissed.

She blushed, realizing that might not have been the most tactful way of putting it. “Um. I just-you know.”

Ford flinched, and stared down at his muddy boots. “Yes, I...I’m aware that I am somewhat...deficient in that area.”

Mabel wrapped both her tiny hands around his. “You’re not deficient, Grunkle Ford, don’t say that!”

Ford didn’t look like he believed her, but he gave her a weak smile, and squeezed her fingers wordlessly.

Then his eyes widened.

“Wait. Old book-you mean that red one you tried to show me?”

Dipper felt his heartbeat pick up. “You remember it now?”

“I-I do!” Ford stared down at them with excitement rising in his face. “I-I think it’s-it’s-” He struggled for words.

“It had stuff in your handwriting,” Mabel said helpfully.

Ford’s whole face scrunched up, like he was trying his hardest to remember. At last, though, he let out a frustrated sigh.

“I need to see it. Where is it?”

Dipper deflated. “...The beast took it when he caught us. I dunno where it is.”

At once the expression changed from frustrated and confused to  _ very _ determined. “Well, I think he’s about to give it back. If he knows what’s good for him, that is.”

And he released their hands, clearly about to go track the beast down and demand the journal’s return, come hell or high water-but before he could, a  _ new  _ absolutely enormous creature came clambering up the stairs.

* * *

It wasn’t the beast. Unlike him, it was walking on all fours, and its fur looked darker than his silvery gray. But that was the most they could see of it at this point.

As it reached the top of the stairwell, it froze, and lifted its head, clearly staring straight at them-then, without hesitation, it lunged forward with a loud roar, jumping up onto its hind legs and clamping massive paws down on Ford’s shoulders before he could escape, which knocked him flat on his back-

And then it proceeded to cover his face in copious amounts of dog slobber.

Dipper screamed in alarm-until he realized that a) the creature wasn’t harming Grunkle Ford, just licking him senseless, and b) it was a big brown dog, whose only threat level seemed to be that they were in danger of being knocked flat by how wildly its massive tail was wagging. He couldn’t help laughing in sheer disbelief, that after all the fierce and terrifying things they’d had to encounter today, now they were dealing with...this.

“Dipper-bleagh-Mabel-” Ford spluttered, and pushed ineffectively at the dog while trying to keep any of its tongue secretions from getting in his mouth- “could one of you please-ugh-get it off-”

“SOOS!”

A massive gray claw reached down and grabbed the dog, lifting him into the air as easily as scruffing a puppy.

The beast gave the dog (Soos, was it? Interesting name choice) a stern glare. “What have I told you ‘bout jumping up on people?”

Soos whined pitifully.

“I  _ know _ you’re excited. But you’re not a puppy anymore, you’re gonna hurt someone doin’ that. Kay?”

Soos opened his mouth, and licked the beast’s cheek. He rolled his eyes and batted him away.

“Yeah, yeah, knock it off, ya slobberin’ mutt.” He lowered his arm and set the dog down, picking up the lantern he’d brought up afterwards. Then he took one look at Ford, and immediately cracked up laughing.

It was admittedly not difficult to understand why: his hair was sticking straight up on two sides, his spectacles had been knocked askew, and his entire face and neck were damp, making him look like he had gone back out into the storm and run into a tree or something. Even Dipper found himself having to put a hand over his mouth when he got a good look at his uncle.

Ford slowly got to his feet, rubbing the back of his head and trying (unsuccessfully) to recapture what remained of his dignity. He glared at the dog, whose tail drooped.

At that moment the fox returned, and uttered a short yap. The beast looked at it, and it gestured with its nose towards the upstairs.

“We found a room for ya. C’mon.” The beast gestured for them to follow him.

Dipper blinked. “Wha-you’re not gonna keep us in there?” He indicated the room they’d been shut in.

The beast looked down at him. “You  _ wanna _ stay in there?”

“Well-no, but-”

“Then what’re you complainin’ about?” He turned away again.

The three humans looked at each other, and then hesitantly followed him.

* * *

“How do you know what your animals are saying?” Mabel asked as they climbed the stairs. Then she let out a delighted gasp. “Can you understand their language or something?!”

The beast snorted. “Do I  _ look _ like a fairy tale princess? Soos and Wendy’ve just been around long enough for me ta know what they wanna say.”

“Oh.” She looked disappointed.

Soos, who was padding at her side, let out a small whine and nuzzled his head against her shoulder until she smiled and patted him.

When they reached the top of the stairs, the fox (Dipper was going to assume that was who the beast meant by Wendy-and therefore he was going to go out on a limb and say that it was a girl) trotted over to a door and pushed it open with her paw. The beast peered inside, and nodded his approval; he turned back to them and made a gesture.

“Here ya go: home sweet home.”

Cautiously the little family peered inside.

There was a large bed covered with a thick red quilt against one wall, and a few other pieces of furniture set up here and there that looked elegant, but dusty, and a curtained-off space in one corner that was probably a bathroom or something. On the whole, it was a once-very opulent room that had been left unused for a very long time, like a room on display in a museum, but might have the capacity to be comfortable.

“...It’s nicer than where we were,” Dipper admitted, before abruptly sneezing as some of the dust got in his nose.

The beast snorted with amusement. “That’s seriously your sneeze, kid?”

“I know!” Mabel cooed. “He sounds like a kitten!”

Dipper glared at her, and rubbed his nose.

Ford, clearly seeing this as a window of opportunity, turned towards the beast.

“The children told me that you have-”

But the beast had already turned and casually smashed down the door of the room next to them, disappearing inside; they heard him rummaging around in there for a moment, before he reappeared carrying something rolled up and red, which he tossed at Ford.

“Here.”

Ford unrolled it, and found to his surprise that it was a long red nightshirt.

“...What…?”

“Figured it might be nicer than sleeping in wet clothes,” the beast said, turning back towards the stairs. “There’s other clothes in there if ya wanna try ‘em out, but if ya want anything in the latest fashion I’ll probably haveta steal it.”

_ Did he just say…? _

As Dipper was trying to sort that out, Mabel let out a sudden horrified gasp.

“Oh no! Mr. McGucket and Tate! They’re probably worried sick about us!”

Dipper realized, with a twinge of guilt, that he had completely forgotten about that possibility, and that it was more than likely true.

“Mr. Beast!” Mabel ran after the beast before he could leave, grabbing onto his sleeve, “we have friends that we live with who probably have no idea where we are!”

“Not my problem,” the beast growled, pulling out of her grasp. “We still have a deal-”

“I just wanna send them a message to let them know we’re okay!” She made her eyes go big, and clasped her hands together under her chin. “Pleeeeease?”

The beast hesitated, and then groaned. “ _ Fine _ . I’ll see if we’ve got any paper lying around-”

“No need.” Ford reached into his pocket and produced some of the papers he used for his research, along with his pen, and leaned against the wall so he would have a flat surface to write on.

“Just no givin’ ‘em directions where ta find you,” the beast growled.

Ford sighed. “Of course not.”

* * *

Since he only had one piece of paper that was blank on one side (the other was covered in notes about the cervitaur herd he’d been studying that morning), and he had to restart a few times as he tried to figure out how to explain the situation, the message was forced to be somewhat concise:

_ Dear Fiddleford and Tate, _

_ I found Dipper and Mabel. _

_ Unfortunately we are now in indentured servitude to a beast, and don’t know when we’ll be back. However, we are all alive and well, and he seems to have no intention of hurting us. _

_ I will try and figure out a way to get further messages to you as time permits. _

_ -Stanford _

Dipper and Mabel signed their names too; Mabel added,  _ WE LOVE YOU AND MISS YOU! _ in big capital letters, and surrounded the words with hearts, before they allowed the beast to see.

He gave a small grunt of approval.

“So, where do your friends live?”

Ford (somewhat reluctantly) gave directions, and the beast turned to Wendy.

“Ya get all that?”

The fox nodded, and he held out the note to her; a second later she took it in her mouth, and ran off down the stairs.

* * *

***

* * *

“Welp, looks like that’s all taken care of! See ya in the morning, or whatever.”

And the beast lumbered away, leaving the lantern (and Soos) behind.

Ford nearly went after him to demand the book back again...but instead, he found himself turning to look at the children.

They both looked...exhausted.

He wasn’t sure if it was more physical or emotional, but either way, it didn’t seem like they’d appreciate being left alone right now. So instead he picked up the lantern, and with a small sigh headed into their new room. The children followed, and Soos padded along behind them, before flopping down in the doorway with a somewhat dramatic sigh.

Ford felt a little silly when he’d put on the voluminous nightshirt, but he had to admit it was nice to be in something warm and dry.

The children’s clothes hadn’t gotten as damp as his, but they found a couple of long men’s shirts in the other room that they changed into.

After they were all dressed, Ford helped the children take the covers off the bed and shake them out in the main corridor, to get rid of the worst of the dust. Dipper let out a few more (admittedly quite humorous-sounding) sneezes as they did so, and both Mabel and Ford got quite a bit of dust up their noses as well (their sneezes were not quite as kitten-like).

Once that was done, they remade the bed, and then, not sure of what else to do, got into it. It was a little awkward, considering that they were all used to having beds to themselves, but though nobody said it, none of them felt comfortable separating.

Dipper and Mabel lay curled up on either side of Ford, curling their fingers into the material of the nightshirt. Even though they were all comfortably burrowed under the blankets, he could feel them trembling against him.

Hesitantly, hoping it was the right action to take, he wrapped an arm around first Mabel, then Dipper, and gave them each a gentle squeeze.

He wanted to promise that things were going to be okay, since he was pretty sure that was what you told frightened children in situations like this...but the fact was, he wasn’t sure they would, and he had never been very good at lying. So all he said, in a soft whisper, was, “Go to sleep, children.”

And he waited until he heard their breathing even out on either side of him before he let his own eyes close.

* * *

Once they were all asleep, Soos got up from his spot on the floor and hopped up onto the bed so he could stretch out across their legs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm imagining Soos as being something between a St. Bernard and a golden retriever.  
> Or whatever Alexander from Full Metal Alchemist was.


	10. Trouble brewing

_Ford was striding down a long corridor in the castle, the back of his long coat trailing behind him in a very dashing, impressive fashion._

_To his surprise, it was clean, at least comparatively so; granted, it had been a while since anyone had taken a broom to the floor, but at least there were no dead leaves or spiderwebs anywhere, and there was a clean blue carpet laid out in front of him, and one or two tapestries decorating the walls. Lanterns hung from braziers every few feet, but he and Fiddleford had been working on a new invention that would create a more consistent light source, and planned on setting it up throughout the castle._

_The experiment had been going very well; he was_ certain _that he just needed to give it another try._

_Up ahead of him, at the end of the corridor, was a large door: his intended destination._

_It was unique among the doors in the castle; unlike the rest of them, it was made of iron. There was also a_ peculiar _design on the front, like an upside-down triangle with a large, pale blue hole in the middle._

_Ford grinned in anticipation as he reached it, and extended a hand towards the doorknob-_

-and nearly jumped out of his skin when a horrible screaming noise assaulted his ears, shocking him into wakefulness amidst a flurry of tangled limbs and alarmed cries from all sides.

It took him a bewildered moment to remember where he was, and what had happened the day before, followed by realizing that the pressures at his sides were the children, while the heavy weight that had made his legs fall asleep was that dog who had knocked him to the floor yesterday, who had apparently decided that he hadn’t made Ford’s life hard enough.

He sat up anxiously, trying to determine the source of the new, unfamiliar noise and whether it was a threat that he’d have to fight-and then did a double take as he registered the bird standing in the window.

It was very large, pale white, and had several impressively long tailfeathers.

As soon as it saw him watching, it raised its head and let out that high squawk again.

“Whoa,” Mabel said at last, rubbing at her eyes, “Check out the funny chicken!”

The bird let out a slightly-less-piercing noise that almost sounded shocked, or even offended, and did a little agitated dance back and forth that made its talons clatter on the windowsill.

Part of Ford wondered how it had managed to get the window open from the outside, even as he pulled his glasses on to take a better look at it.

“That’s not a chicken, Mabel. It’s a very unique specimen of white peacock. Though-” he tilted his head thoughtfully- “come to think of it, it might actually be a pea _hen_. It lacks the wide crest of tailfeathers that the males are known for.”

The peahen’s head dipped up and down, almost like she was nodding. Then she turned on her heel and hopped back out the window, evidently satisfied that she had completed her mission in waking them up.

“Just how many animals _live_ here?” Dipper asked in bewilderment.

* * *

As it turned out, when they had dressed and made their way downstairs the answer was, ‘at least one more.’

When they found the kitchen, there was a large, old-looking gray cat lying curled up next to the stove, who opened its eyes and greeted them with a soft, whispery “mrow.”

Soos, who had accompanied them, immediately wandered over and licked her cheek in greeting; she patted his nose with her paw in a way that seemed almost affectionate, before getting onto her hind legs and proceeding to wash his ears.

...Ford was really starting to suspect that these were enchanted animals of some kind.

He wasn’t sure whether to be more relieved or perturbed that the kitchen was the cleanest part of the house.

Even though the floor was still pretty dusty, the table and countertops looked as though they had been recently scrubbed, and there was a large platter on the table adorned with a loaf of bread, some butter and honey, and a jug of water. There was no sign of the beast, but his pawprints in the dust showed that he had been here recently.

Mabel didn’t hesitate; she just went over to the table and ripped a hunk off the loaf, before she began generously smearing it with honey.

“Mabel, wait!” Ford held out a hand to stop her.

“Why? I’m _starving_!” she protested.

It occurred to Ford that this was the first meal any of them would have had in around half a day; his stomach inadvertently grumbled.

“...All the same, we should be a little careful,” he said, even as he pulled up a chair and sat down. And almost jumped out of his skin for the second time that day when a voice behind him rumbled, “Oh _please_ , if I wanted ta kill ya, I wouldn’t waste time with poison.”

The beast grinned toothily as he stepped into the kitchen; everyone started to get up, but he waved a paw at them until they sat down again.

“You can get started whenever ya get enough ta eat.”

Taking that as her cue, Mabel started eating, and after a more hesitant second Dipper followed suit.

Ford’s eyes narrowed, but at last he took a small slice of bread for himself, adding a small spread of butter on top.

* * *

For a while everyone ate in more or less silence, while the beast leaned against his cane and watched them, looking lost in thought.

Once the last crumbs of bread had been devoured, he scratched the fur behind his ear and started opening his mouth to speak-but before he could, Mabel turned to him and smiled brightly.

“I just realized, we haven’t introduced ourselves yet! I’m Mabel, this is my brother Dipper and our Grunkle Ford!”

The beast wrinkled his nose. “...Grunkle? What’s that, some kinda chieftain title?”

Mabel giggled. “No, it’s just short for ‘great uncle’!” She bounced a little in her seat. “What’s your name?”

The beast looked oddly taken aback for a second, before his eyes darted towards the floor.

“...Don’t have one.”

“What?!”

“Monsters don’t have names, kid.”

“That’s not true,” Ford felt obligated to point out. “There’s plenty of myths about creatures with names, like Scylla and Charybdis, or Jenny Greenteeth, or-”

“Well, _this_ one doesn’t have one,” the beast growled, shooting him an irritated glare.

“We need to call you _something_!” Mabel protested. “Something that’s better than Mr. Beast.”

He rolled his eyes, and finally muttered, “Just pick something, I don’t care.”

“Okay, your new name is...Fluffy Snuzzleface!”

Dipper cracked up laughing, and even Ford couldn’t help chuckling at the beast’s facial expression. He could tell, without even asking, that he was contemplating a future of being referred to as Fluffy Snuzzleface.

After a second he said, “Okay, you are no longer on the naming committee.”

“Oh, come on! That’s a beautiful name!”

“No, it’s stupid.”

Mabel looked a little hurt, but the beast didn’t appear to notice. He was busy scratching his head again, staring thoughtfully at the ceiling. At last he said, “...Soledad.”

“Huh?”

“That’s a name I can live with. Soledad.”

Mabel wrinkled her nose. “Sounds kinda foreign.”

“That’s cuz it is.” And the newly christened Soledad headed for the door, gesturing for them to follow him.

* * *

***

* * *

In the main entryway they found a pile of mops, brooms, buckets, dusters, rakes, and other cleaning supplies.

“Where did you get these?” Ford asked curiously.

Soledad shrugged. “Eh, you know-found ‘em lyin’ around.”

_(Meanwhile, in the village of Gravity Falls, several people woke up to find that various cleaning supplies had gone missing, and in their places were a few pieces of wood that had been roughly carved into the shape of coins. On one side there was a messy etching of..._ something _vaguely animal-shaped_ _, and on the other side there were words, looking like they’d been written by someone who had never tried their hand at woodcarving before: “Beast Euros! It’s money!”)_

Dipper saw Ford’s eyes narrow a little, but he didn’t speak; he just folded his arms.

“So,” Soledad said, “for your first job I want you three ta make this whole castle _spotless_ , however many days that takes. Sweep, mop, whatever it takes ta get all the gunk out. Cuz after that, the _real_ work begins!”

Dipper tilted his head. “ _What_ real work?”

“Well, this place is a creepy castle out in the middle of the woods that a lotta folks are scared of, right?”

Mabel nodded. “Uh-huh. There’s lots of rumors about it in the village that we heard about it before we came here.”

...Granted, those rumors had all come from one person, and it was just the one time, but Dipper supposed that the point still stood.

Soledad grinned, and rubbed his paws together. “And yet you little gremlins came here anyway. I think you’re not the only ones who’d do that if ya had the chance, especially if ya thought there was somethin’ here worth lookin’ at.”

“What are you getting at?” Dipper asked.

The beast raised his arms dramatically into the air, twirling his cane. “I’m gonna turn this whole place into an attraction!”

“The thing you gotta understand about people is, as much as they claim ta hate weird, creepy stuff like monsters and old castles, they’re also really into the thrill of it. That’s why they like tellin’ ghost stories, and why teenagers sometimes come here and dare each other to try and knock on the front door or whatever.”

As if on cue, the one side of the door that was still hanging abruptly fell off its hinges. Soledad glanced at it.

“You gotta fix that, too.”

He spun back to face them.

“So, I bet if we offered folks a chance ta come here, see a _real_ haunted castle and all the weird stuff it has inside-not ta mention the real live, terrifying _beast_ -they would be more’n happy ta _pay_ for a chance ta do so!”

It was a pretty crazy idea...but the way he talked about it, using that big theatrical voice of his...Dipper couldn’t help thinking that it was just crazy enough to work.

Wait a minute.

“What kind of _stuff_ are you thinking about showing people?”

Soledad shrugged. “Eh, sure I can put together some weird taxidermy, maybe a few fake gold necklaces I can pass off as ‘cursed amulets’.” He cackled at the idea. “You wouldn’t _believe_ the kinda stuff people can be suckered into believing! And hey, it might also get the occasional angry mobs off my back-”

“I can’t believe you.”

Dipper looked at Ford in confusion-which turned into shock at the sheer _rage_ burning in his grunkle’s eyes.

Ford marched towards the beast, fists clenched at his sides and appearing to have completely forgotten that he was facing down a seven-foot tiger.

“You-you would take advantage of other people’s curiosity, just for _profit_?!”

Soledad tilted his head...and then nodded.

“Yeah, I think I would.”

“That-that is the absolute _lowest_ form of-how can you-!” Ford was apparently too angry to even form a coherent sentence. At last he spluttered, “What do you even _need_ money for?! You’re a monster who lives all alone in a broken-down castle, what would you even spend it on?!”

Dipper winced at the way the beast’s ears flattened, and the fur on the back of his neck began to rise. “Gee, I’d almost forgot, thanks for _reminding_ me!” he growled back. “And what I choose ta do with it is _my_ business, not yours!”

“It _is_ my business when you’re planning to make a mockery of my entire field of work! I go out of my way to study _real_ anomalous creatures, and actually _learn_ things, and you-you’re planning on doing the exact opposite! I can’t let you-!”

A large claw grabbed the front of his shirt, lifting him until they were eye to eye.

“Look, marshmallow head.” Soledad’s voice had lowered to a deep, rumbling snarl that made the hair on Dipper’s arms stand on end. “Last I checked, this wasn’t your decision to make. This is _my_ castle, and _my_ rules, and I’ll do whatever I _want_ with it! And you don’t haveta like it, but we made a _deal_ , so you can just shut. Your. Yap!”

The last word was accompanied by a flash of his fangs that had Ford flinching back, before the beast half-lowered, half-dropped him to the floor, and then stormed off into the depths of the castle.

Ford turned away, and with a frustrated noise ended up kicking the remains of an old chair lying on the floor nearby into splinters.

Dipper and Mabel flinched away, instinctively grabbing onto each other.

They gave each other nervous looks, and after a second decided it would be best to make themselves scarce.

They both grabbed brooms from the pile, and made their way upstairs to get started working.

* * *

***

* * *

_Well, well, well!_

_Looks like the gang’s all here-and with a couple of_ new _faces in the crowd too!_

_This could be a bit of a game changer, am I right, folks?_

_Unfortunately, thanks to that_ stupid _deal, ol’ Six-Fingers’s head is off-limits. For now, anyway._

_But hey, maybe Pinetree or Shooting Star could be a little more...open-minded..._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Even when they don't remember each other, the boys can still find something to fight about.  
> So sad.


	11. More questions without answers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy February, everyone.

The children decided the easiest place to start cleaning (not to mention the most beneficial for them) was their room.

They began by sweeping all the dust and dirt that they could into a dustpan before dumping it out the window. This took quite some time, even after they finished beating the rub clean, and after they finished that Mabel worked up the courage to sneak back downstairs for rags and buckets so they could get some serious furniture-dusting and floor-mopping done.

There was no sign of Grunkle Ford when she reached the main hallway; she hoped he’d just gone somewhere to cool off, instead of going to argue with Soledad again. While she could understand why he was so upset about the beast’s idea, just yelling at him about it didn’t seem like it would help things in the long run. As she gathered the supplies they would need, she began entertaining the notion of making them apology sweaters and encouraging them to just sit down somewhere and talk about their differences...

Mabel was still musing over the possibilities (and trying to guess how much yarn she would need to make a sweater that would fit Soledad) as she went out one of the back doors of the castle and found a well in the (very neglected) garden, containing water that was surprisingly clean-looking, and used it to fill up one of the buckets.

She realized too late the problem of having such a full bucket: namely that she would have to carry it all the way up the stairs again.

_ Ugh, it’d be nice if there was a dumbwaiter here like at Grunkle Ford’s house...if there was one, it’d probably be right around here, where this big stone is. _

She tapped a half-hearted fist against the spot on the stairwell-and froze when it made a hollow, echoing noise. And instead of rock, it felt like wood under her knuckles.

Mabel hesitated, and then tentatively knocked on the spot again. The same thing happened.

She set the bucket down, and then reached out to the sides of the stone, tugging experimentally on each one; after a second, it opened up on very creaky hinges, revealing that there was, indeed, a platform and a set of ropes inside!

_...No crank, though. That’s kinda annoying. _

Regardless, Mabel set the bucket on the platform, and after a moment began trying to push it upwards by hand.

It...worked about as well as you might expect.

At last she gave up in frustration, and closed the door...before gathering the rest of the cleaning supplies and heading upstairs to find where the other end was.

Dipper came to meet her when she got to the top of the stairs.

“Mabel, where’s the water-?” He stared at her as she began going from side to side and knocking on the largest pieces of stone in the walls. “...Um, Mabel? What-”

“Ssh!” She held up a silencing finger. A second later she knocked on a new section of wall, and let out a frustrated huff when all that she got was another regular “knuckles on rock” noise.

She went across to the other side of the wall, knocking on another piece-and let out a squeal of excitement when the result was hollow woodenness.

Mabel hurriedly grappled with the fake stone, and pulled it free to reveal the other end of the dumbwaiter-and even better, it turned out that there was a smaller ‘stone’ area next to it that concealed the crank!

“Wait, what the-” Dipper rushed to her side, peering down into the depths of the shaft. Mabel began turning the crank, and soon enough they could see and hear the rumbling of the platform, carrying the bucket. It creaked a little ominously, probably because it hadn’t been used in years, but at least it managed to hold.

“It’s just like the one in Grunkle Ford’s house, but a lot older!” Mabel said excitedly, reaching out and grabbing the bucket once the platform came to a stop.

“Wait, wait wait wait!” Dipper scratched the side of his head; the “an exciting mystery is happening right under my nose” expression was shining in his eyes anew. “Didn’t Tate say his dad was the one who invented that?”

“Yeah.” Realization slowly settled in, and Mabel stared at the dumbwaiter in equal shock and excitement.

Because what were the odds of the same invention being in two different places and  _ not _ invented by the same person?

“...We need to figure out a way to get them here. This castle seems to be helping Grunkle Ford’s memories already, so it’ll probably help McGucket’s too. And maybe it’ll be easier to get some answers.”

Mabel nodded. “Agreed.”

“But not right this second,” Dipper said hurriedly. “Not when Soledad’s in this kind of mood.”

She reluctantly conceded the point, and they went back to work.

* * *

After about an hour of scrubbing and dusting the last bits of filth from the floor in their room, the twins sat down on the bed to let everything dry so they could lay the rug back down.

Without thinking about it, Mabel said aloud, “This all feels like one of those stories Dad used to tell us.”

Dipper’s shoulders tightened-but then the corner of his mouth quirked up wistfully. “...Yeah, it kinda does.”

Mr. Pines had, in true Scheherezade style, enjoyed getting his children to go to sleep by telling them long, complicated stories with lots of twists and turns and interesting characters with secret backstories that would gradually be unraveled. The stories would often be so long they would have to be told over the course of several weeks, and they’d be kept guessing over what was going to happen next. The children suspected that there were a lot of details he was just making up as he went along, but it was more than worth it for the sheer thrill of the new, exciting tale.

“Of course, if this was one of his stories the animals would probably be able to talk,” Dipper pointed out. “Or you’d develop the magical ability to speak to them, because you’re a princess in disguise or something, and-” he did as close to an imitation of their father’s voice as his own squeaky puberty voice was capable of- “as everyone knows, princesses are  _ always _ capable of talking to their animal companions as easily as if they were humans!”

Both of them burst into giggles.

When the laughter died away, Mabel let out a small sigh.

“...I wish they were here.”

Maybe it was her imagination, but it seemed like Dipper flinched a little, before staring down at his lap.

“...Me too.”

He hesitated, looking like he was about to say something else-but then the door opened, and Soledad came striding in.

He still did not look happy; his fur was bristling all over, and the tips of his fangs were showing, and they could see his claws digging into the floor as he walked.

Immediately both of them jumped to their feet.

“We were just taking a break!” Dipper said quickly. “We weren’t slacking off!”

Soledad blinked, and looked a little confused for a second. All he said, though, was, “Where’s the old jerk?”

Mabel felt a nervous flutter in her stomach. “He’s not downstairs?”

Soledad growled. “Ya think I’d be asking about him if he was?”

Both of them shrank back; to their surprise, that seemed to calm him down. His fur settled, and he stepped back, looming over them a little less. “I can’t find him anywhere.”

And then, as if on cue, they all heard a pained yell which sounded as if it was coming from the forest.


	12. The law of the claw

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I thought about including something Groundhog Day-related. Since, y'know, it's Groundhog Day.  
> Unfortunately, I got nothing.  
> Except this song link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylGrQVL774k

Ford hadn’t meant to leave the castle grounds when he first stormed outside.

Really.

He’d gone out there because he couldn’t spend one more second in the same castle with that obnoxious furry monstrosity, and wound up just stomping up and down the unkempt lawns and overgrown paths, crushing plants under his boots, and just expressing his general frustration and displeasure with the world through aggressive pacing.

Unfortunately, he could see no real loopholes in the deal he’d made: he and the children were to stay with Soledad and do chores (Ugh, which was a whole new level of petty, by the way! Why couldn’t the beast do his _own_ cleaning?!) until he decided to set them free because their so-called “debt” was paid off. And a deal was a deal, and you couldn’t break one, no matter how much you might want to.  
There weren’t even any helpful clauses indicating that they could back out of whatever chores were assigned to them, or promises that if they disobeyed or argued with him he wouldn’t-

Ford paused, and considered.

...No, actually.

Based on his previous behavior, it didn’t seem like Soledad would do anything to genuinely _hurt_ them. Even when he was angry at the children for trespassing, all he’d done was lock them in a room, and supplied them with a fire and (somewhat minimal) comfort. And after the deal was struck, he’d given them a room, clothes, food. And sure, he seemed to have no problem with picking Ford up and threatening him face to face, but even then he’d never even used his claws on him. He just threw him around a little. That wasn’t consistent with the behavior of someone intending to harm you, right?

...Then again, what did _Ford_ know about whether or not people were going to hurt you or not? The last time he’d trusted someone besides Fiddleford or Tate, and believed his intentions were good, it had resulted in-

Wait.

Ford struggled to grab onto this memory before it could slip away again. He knew this, this was _important_ , it was the-the thing he kept needing to remember! Something terrible had happened to him once, because he’d trusted the wrong person, and then it led to him losing-

He realized too late how close he was to the still open gateway, and that he had absentmindedly wandered right through it into the forest.

Ford had gone almost a full day without experiencing a headache; the one that jumped on him now caught him completely off guard. He put a hand to his forehead, staggering like a baby deer as he tried to keep from falling from the strength of the sudden, stabbing pain, like shards of glass being driven through his skull, please anybody make it STOP-

When he opened his eyes again, he was leaning against a tree.

His bangs were damp with sweat, and his palms were throbbing; a glance made him realize that he’d been digging his nails into them, hard enough to leave five crescent-shaped marks.

What-what had just happened? And-where was he?

Ford looked around, realizing that he was surrounded by trees, with no path in sight.

For a moment his chest seized up with irrational panic, before he clenched his jaw and straightened his spine.

_Get ahold of yourself, Stanford. You probably just went for a walk in the woods and got lost-or fell asleep in a fairy ring again. It’s not the first time you’ve been alone out here, and it probably won’t be the last._

_...Tate and Fiddleford are not going to be pleased if I stayed out all night. Maybe I ought to stay home for a day or so to appease them. I could take the time to tidy up some of my papers._

_...Wait, didn’t-someone else already do that?_

Ford tried to remember-and his head shrieked with pain again, sending him stumbling further into the trees while clutching his skull.

He saw the figures in the shadows, and heard the beginning chords of a bluegrass song being played, far too late.

* * *

***

* * *

“Grunkle Ford!” Dipper started to run for the door-but a heavy gray paw caught him in the chest, shoving him back.

“Stay here,” Soledad growled. “I’ll go get him.”

“But-”

The beast rounded on him with such an intense glare it was a wonder his legs didn’t turn to stone right then and there. “ _Stay. Here._ ” He put two claws in his mouth, and whistled; a minute later Soos came bounding up the stairs.

“Watch them,” Soledad ordered, indicating the kids. “I gotta go save their idiot uncle.” And then, with a crack of his neck, he went bounding away down the stairs.

* * *

***

* * *

This time, there was a whole pack of KillBillies that surrounded Ford. All in the same kind of ill-fitting, bloodstained overalls and wide, floppy hats. He hadn’t been able to ascertain if there were KillMillies, or if they reproduced asexually or something, but he definitely wasn’t seeing any evidence of them here. Just a cluster of hungry, vicious hill men, all watching him with wide, glowing eyes.

For the moment, at least, they seemed to be more curious than anything else, probably wondering why their potential prey was staggering about so strangely.

Ford felt terror threatening to choke him, and stubbornly forced it back down. Since his behavior seemed to be keeping them at bay for the time being, he continued staggering and moaning; maybe they’d think he was diseased or something, and choose to leave him be. In case they didn’t, though, his eyes frantically scanned the surrounding area for a potential weapon.

One of the KillBillies let out a curious grunt, and crab-walked closer to him; it raised a long, unwashed arm, and plucked at the back of his trenchcoat.

Despite his resolve to stay calm, Ford pulled away quickly, and let out a disgusted noise.

The KillBilly’s lips curled upwards, giving him a good view of its many ( _many_ ) teeth, and it hooted to its fellows, before hamboning against its knees.

...Ford wished he’d taken more time to learn about that from hearing Fiddleford and Tate secretly talking to each other from a collection of seemingly-random slaps against different parts of their body; for all he knew, the creature could have just said, “Coyotes are coming for our sweetbreads.” Though under the circumstances, it was probably something far more sinister.

The rest of the pack responded with a chorus of grunting and hamboning, and began to surge closer as well, all wearing wide, hungry grins.

Clearly the time for playing “wounded deer” was over.

Without hesitation, Ford lunged, snatching up a large fallen branch, and whirled with it, catching one of the KillBillies in the teeth. Then he broke into a run.

A pair of KillBillies came at him from either side, letting out high, enraged screeches; he just dived, allowing them to crash face-first into each other, and then scrambled to his feet again to try and regain his lost ground.

Every time one of the awful beasts got close, he would lash out with his makeshift club, or a couple of times even with his fists if they were close enough. He tried to ignore the voice in the back of his head warning him that he was an old man who couldn’t keep this up forever, and just tried to focus on finding some high ground, or a convenient shop (they couldn’t go into places like that, because they respected the rules of no shirt, no shoes, no service), or _anything_ that would save him.

Everything was chaos and panic; Ford could see the KillBillies leaping and scrambling through the trees on either side of him, trying to get in front of him so they could cut him off. He just ignored the rapidly-growing stitch in his side and picked up speed to prevent that from happening. If he could even find a path-

There! He barely managed to make out a streak of brown laid out between the trees over to his left!

Ford swung the branch with reckless abandon at the KillBilly closest to him, and then began to charge in that direction-

A heavy weight slammed into him from above, knocking him onto his back.

For a moment Ford saw stars, as the back of his head slammed into something hard, like rock or a hunk of wood; when his vision cleared, he saw that there was a KillBilly crouched over him, with its knees being used to pin down his arms.

_No. No no no, it can’t end like this! Please!_

Ford struggled, kicking out with his legs and thrashing like a rabbit caught in a trap; the KillBilly just smiled, showing off its dripping fangs, and began prodding at his chest and neck, as if trying to choose where to take the first bite.

The others clustered around, uttering little howls of triumph (or perhaps disappointment that they weren’t the ones to catch him). Then the one pinning him seemed to make up its mind, rearing back its head with mouth opened wide-

-and a large blur of gray slammed into it, knocking it off of Ford.

* * *

He sat up in shock, in time to see what looked like some kind of exceptionally large tiger dropping the crushed remains of the KillBilly from its jaws, before letting out an earth-shattering roar.

Ford’s head throbbed again, even as his heart clenched in terror that some new eldritch abomination had decided it wanted the privilege of finishing him off-but then a name flittered across his mind.

_...Soledad?_

The rest of them all decided to attack the beast at once, shrieking with rage over the demise of their packmate; he showed no mercy in return. Ones that fell under his feet were kicked and stomped on, any that came into contact with his jaws received bites that they’d be lucky to live through, his claws raked through flesh like knives through butter, and blood was flying everywhere.

The KillBillies gave as good as they got. They climbed onto his back, pounding at him with heavy fists and scratching him with equal vengeance; a few even managed to get bites in, which were accompanied by the greedy sucking sound of them beginning to feast. Soledad fell over backwards and crushed them under his weight before throwing them off.

All the same, there were at least ten of them, and only one of him...and somehow, those odds just didn’t sit right with Ford.

He snatched up his club again, and charged back into the fray with an enraged holler.

It could have been minutes or hours, Ford couldn’t tell which, before the battle ended; it was mostly a blurry haze of smashing and clubbing, all the while trying to avoid fangs and long-nailed fingers.

But at last, the KillBillies still standing offered anxious hoots to each other, before retreating into the trees.

Ford’s arms throbbed as he let the branch drop, and stood there trembling. It took him a moment to realize that at some point, he and Soledad had ended up back to back, and that he could feel the beast’s heavy form pressed against him.

Slowly he turned to face him-and saw that he was bent over, with his paws pressed against his knees, and taking deep, heaving breaths.

“Um-”

Soledad jerked his head up and snarled at him, revealing that his jaws were caked with gore. “What?!”

Ford pulled out of biting distance, just in case, and tried to remember how he knew the creature’s name. It had something to do with-

“The kids! Where are the kids?!”

Soledad groaned, and tried to straighten up. “Hopefully...back at the castle where I left ‘em.”

... _Castle?_

_Wait, yes! Yes, I remember now! The children found it, and we were staying there because-_

It was becoming harder to remember by the second, even when he concentrated; he gripped his hair, and forced himself to focus on the main anchor that was available to him: _I need to get back to the kids._

To his equal parts annoyance and relief, Soledad snatched him up and slung him over his shoulder before he began trudging away; as long as he was willing to do all the walking, that would make it easier for Ford to focus.

* * *

***

* * *

For the third time Dipper and Mabel tried unsuccessfully to run for the gate, only to get knocked back by Soos.

“C’mon, man!” Dipper pleaded. “We gotta go out there-Grunkle Ford needs us!”

Soos shook his head firmly, and gave them as stern a look as he was capable of.

Dipper felt his frustration rising, along with something deeper and far more visceral. “You don’t _understand_!” He couldn’t even be embarrassed over how his voice cracked. “He’s all we have! We-I can’t-”

He could feel his chest growing tight, as horrifying images swam through his mind, of his uncle lying all pale and still, just like his mother and father and grandfather-

“Look!”

Soos, who they had already managed to fool once with the old “Look behind you!” gag, did not appear impressed.

Mabel just pointed more emphatically. “They’re back! They’re coming down the path!”

Soos still wouldn’t turn around-not until he heard the labored breathing from behind him-and, presumably, smelled the sharp tang of blood in the air.

Soledad barely took the time to lower Grunkle Ford, who was clutching his head and moaning, off his shoulder and onto the grass at his side, before collapsing face-first into a patch of wild marigolds.


	13. Extending an olive branch

Soledad woke up to the feeling of a damp cloth being rubbed against his face, and lots of spots on his back and arms and stomach stinging and throbbing and aching.

He opened his eyes, slowly, and found himself lying in front of a fire, on his side, with the kids kneeling before him. They were surrounded by bowls of bloody water, damp rags, a couple of jars of something that smelled like medicine and a pile of bandages; the girl was currently wiping at the bottom of his mouth with one of the rags, while the boy was winding a strip of bandage around the end of his tail. Wendy was next to him, with the tips of her paws covered in the medicine stuff, while Soos sat behind her, wearing a very literal hangdog expression and a cloth sticking out of his mouth. Even Pacifica had apparently dropped the snotty attitude for once and helped out with taking care of someone other than herself, if the pieces of bandage stuck to her foot were anything to go by.

The girl brightened when she saw that his eyes were open.

“Oh good, you’re awake!”

The moment he heard that, Soos let out a happy bark and bounded past everyone to jump on the beast, smothering him with joyful licks until he shoved him off.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m glad I’m not dead too. Now get off me.”

Once Soos was pushed back enough for him to see, he got a good look at his arm. It had been wrapped from his wrist to his elbow in a long white bandage. There was another one tied around his stomach, and he could feel some spots on his back and shoulders that were covered up too. It occurred to him to wonder where all this medicine and stuff had come from;  _ he _ certainly didn’t remember stealing it.

“Uh-how-”

“We had Wendy get stuff to help us fix you up, cuz you got hurt pretty bad fighting those KillBillies,” the girl explained. “Grunkle Ford says you’re lucky they didn’t exterminate you.”

“Technically, the word I used was ‘exsanguinate,’” the old jerk’s voice corrected. Soledad tilted his head back and saw him sitting on the sofa behind them, with a bandage wrapped around his forehead and a couple more around the palms of his hands. For once he wasn’t wearing that stupid trenchcoat; instead he was in the nightshirt Soledad had found for him, and a pair of big fluffy slippers. María was sitting curled up on the sofa above his head, and appeared to be grooming his hair.

“But I suppose you were at a risk for both things happening, since their preferred method of killing is by sucking your blood. You’re lucky that you got out of that alive.”

Soledad growled. “Well, ex _ cuse _ me for comin’ ta save your butt after you went wandering into the forest like an  _ idiot _ !” He sat up slowly, turning his back on the old jerk. He noticed, to his indignation, that he’d had most of his clothes removed, except for his shorts and undershirt; yeah, they’d been falling to pieces anyway, but still.

He heard an indignant growl from behind him that almost matched his in anger level. “It’s not like I  _ meant _ to! It was an  _ accident _ !”

He couldn’t help snorting. “Oh,  _ sure _ ! You just ‘accidentally’ wandered outside?!” Soledad didn’t know why, but something about this whole exchange felt...off. Backwards, or something.

“Do you honestly think I would have tried to leave on purpose? After we made a deal, and  _ without _ taking the children with me?”

“There’s plenty o’ people in the world who make deals without keeping ‘em.” He was pretty sure he’d been one of them, back in the...before-back at some point in his past. “And plenty who’ve abandoned children, too.”

He heard the old jerk let out a shocked noise, before abruptly he was stomping around to stand right in front of Soledad. His face was like a thundercloud, and not even the fact that he was in his nightshirt and slippers were enough to undermine his ferocity.

“Listen to me, beast. If and when I decide to leave here, or you ‘allow’ me to leave, it will be with Dipper and Mabel. I would  _ never _ willingly leave them here. Believe whatever else you want to about me, but that will always be the truth.”

Everyone stared at him in amazement. Even, Soledad noticed, the kids. They were staring at their uncle with wide eyes, even as he marched back to the sofa and sat down again.

_ Apparently this is news to them, too. _

“...So why’d you go out so far, then?”

There was an uncomfortable pause, before the old jerk finally said with an irritated huff, “It...was a mistake. I went for a walk, and wandered too far from the wall.”

...Yeah, he didn’t believe that. It didn’t sound exactly untrue, but he could tell there was a lie in the words. But whatever. If the old jerk didn’t wanna tell the big, scary monster the truth, he wouldn’t hold it against him. It was no skin off his nose.

He was caught off guard, however, by the next words out of the old jerk’s mouth: “Thank you. You saved my life.”

Soledad hadn’t expected the level of visceral reaction he would experience from hearing someone verbally thank him for something. He was mortified to actually feel a lump rising in his throat, which he quickly tried to swallow down, while rubbing the back of his neck with one claw. He didn’t-couldn’t-turn to look at the old jerk- _ Ford _ .

“Heh. Well, y’know, I figured you knew more about lookin’ after these little gremlins than I would.” He gestured to the kids; the girl smiled at him in a weirdly  _ knowing  _ way, while the boy looked self-conscious and awkward (so, as far as he knew, situation normal).

Soledad was pretty sure he was the only one who heard Ford murmur softly, “...No, not really.”

* * *

***

* * *

For a few minutes everyone lapsed into silence, save for the crackling of the flames.

Despite all the tension that had just been here, it was surprisingly warm and comfortable.

Eventually the beast scooted until his back was resting against the sofa, and stretched his legs out in front of him with a tired sigh, in a way that made him seem...oddly human.

A second later Soos padded over to his side and flopped back down with his head in his lap. Instead of shoving him off again, Soledad just lifted one of his big paws and began scratching his ears.

As if taking that as a cue, the other animals congregated around him too. Wendy lay down next to his feet, batting playfully at his toes; the old gray cat hopped down to the sofa cushions just behind Soledad’s head and began washing his fur; the peahen squirmed under his free arm and crooned until he stroked her neck feathers.

Grunkle Ford relaxed too, tilting his head back and resting one of his hands over his stomach.

Satisfied that their nursing requirements had been completed, Mabel made her way to the sofa and clambered up against Ford’s side without hesitation; he uttered a surprised grunt, but then rested his hand on her shoulder and absentmindedly stroked her hair.

There was enough room on the sofa left for Dipper to join the domestic scene; as he was getting up to do just that, though, he stopped and blinked.

Maybe it was a trick of the firelight, or something, but-when he looked at the forms of his uncle and the beast, both leaning back in a very similar way...maybe it was just the shape of their chins, but-

He rubbed his forehead.

_ The stress must be getting to me. _

He made sure he’d cleaned his hands, and then went and made himself comfortable next to his sister.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Like many other people, I’ve decided to call Soos’s abuelita Maria.  
> Just in case you get confused about who I’m referring to.


	14. Meanwhile, back at the house

Fiddleford had been searchin’ the forest for almos’ twelve hours straight afore he finally gave up an’ turned the old prototype automaton back towards home (thankfully he’d thought ta include a little compass that’d tell him the right direction, or he woulda been lost in the woods fer sure). He barely noticed that his overalls were soaked, or the way his hat kept drippin’ water on the end o’ his nose, or how much his arms were shiverin’ and quiverin’ away. It didn’t matter no how, since Dipper ‘n Mabel were prob’ly goin’ through far worse, wherever they were.

With every step the giant metal legs took between the trees, he half expected ta find the kidlets’ poor frozen bodies lyin’ on the ground somewheres, as a thousand terror-fyin’ sitiations that mighta happened chased each other through the confused jumble of foggy confusion and fixation on mechanics that passed for his brain.

_Oh donkey spittle, chonkifyin’ skulduggery-ifyin’ banjo polish! What if they ran inta the gnomes, and they were out lookin’ fer a queen again? Mabel’s too young fer ta get married! Or a gremloblin, one o’ them makers o’ nightmares? Or they’re in that part o’ the forest where-_

The headache that throbbed in his skull was so strong that he nearly ran into a tree, and just barely pulled the lever that brought him to a stop in time.

Fiddleford took a moment to bring hisself as far back unner control as he was capable of, afore gettin’ goin’ again.

_Mebbe Stanford or Tate found ‘em. They’re better at stuff like that anyhow. Actin’ like functionin’, sensible human beings, I mean._

_Or at least Tate is._

* * *

When he finally pulled up outside the house, Tate came thumpin’ out the back door, with some kinda paper clenched in his hand, lookin’ far more excited and agitated than he’d ever seen his boy.

“Dad! They’re okay!”

Fiddleford slipped in the act o’ climbin’ outta the automaton, and nearly fell right off inta the mud.

“Say what? Did ya find ‘em?”

“No, but I found this when I came back! It’s a note from Stanford, saying that they’re all okay, but they’ve been captured by a beast!”

This time, Fiddleford really did fall off.

Half an hour later, Fiddleford was in clean, dry clothes, with his feet in a tub o’ warm water, starin’ at the note. It was damp and torn around the edges, and it looked like something with tiny sharp teeth had bit into it, but the writing was still easy to recognize as belongin’ ta Ford.

“...Well, technically he said ‘indentured servitude,’” Tate corrected, peering over his father’s shoulder. Then he sighed and shook his head. “Sounds like the kinda trouble Stanford’d get hisself into, sure enough.”

“Yeah, but why’d he haveta drag the kids into it?” Fiddleford tugged at the blanket he was wearin’ anxiously.

“He ain’t exactly the best caretaker on the planet,” Tate muttered.

Fiddleford pretended not ta hear, just tapped the note ‘gainst his other palm and tried ta think clearly fer once.

_Beast...why’s that sound familiar?_

_It makes me think of...somethin’ important-like. From my past._

_Beast...Beast...Beast...Beast-_

* * *

**_WHEN GRAVITY FALLS AND EARTH BECOMES SKY, FEAR THE BEAST WITH JUST ONE EYE_ **

**_I dunno, it seems kind of dangerous_ **

**_You don’t understand, Fiddleford-if we can pull this off_ **

**_Just think about the possibilities, man_ **

**_Door door door door with a blue symbol on the front, slowly creaking open_ **

**_Chanting chanting chanting, symbols on the ground_ **

**_Flash of yellow light_ **

**_WELL WELL WELL_ **

**_YROO XRKSVI GIRZMTOV_ **

* * *

When Fiddleford recovered hisself, he was lyin’ on the floor, soakin’ wet cuz he musta knocked the tub over.

Tate was kneeling at his side, holdin’ a cushion under his head ta keep it from smackin’ ‘gainst the floor, and half-cradlin’ him.

Fiddleford’s head ached in a way it hadn’t since-great balls o’ fire, how long’d it been since the last time he had a fit that bad?

Tate seemed ta realize he was awake now; Fiddleford felt him sitting up and rubbin’ his shoulder.

“Dad? How ya feelin’?”

His son’s voice wobbled, makin’ Fiddleford’s heart hurt. He _hated_ makin’ his boy feel like this, he _hated_ bein’ broken an’ all jumbled-up, he _hated_ how he could barely take care o’ hisself, let alone two kids-

Slowly he sat up, and looked back down at the letter. He couldn’t quite remember which part of it had driven him inta that fit, but he did recollect what it said.

“Tate,” he said in a firm voice he hadn’t needed since Tate were just a boy, “start heatin’ up the furnace. We’re gonna finish that automaton, and then we’re gonna go find Stanford and the kidlets and save ‘em from that beast.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Clan McGucket is on the warpath.  
> Tremble in fear, brief mortals.


	15. More secrets, but dreams instead of pies this time

Dipper woke up to the feeling of someone gently shaking his shoulder.

He opened his eyes groggily, and managed to make out Grunkle Ford standing over him, with Mabel at his side.

The fire had burned down to embers, bathing most of the room in shadows, and all the animals (including the beast) were sound asleep. In fact, Soledad was snoring, loud enough to rival their grandfather, who’d practically been able to make the windows shake while he was sleeping.

“Come on,” Ford whispered, “let’s go to our room.”

There was another lantern above the fireplace, and Ford used a still-burning coal to light it so they could make their way upstairs in comparative safety.

It wasn’t raining tonight, so Dipper could hear the castle creaking ominously as they walked up the unstable staircase, along with a hundred other strange sounds echoing here and there: scratching, faint rumbling, the thin  _ scritch-scritch-scritch _ of a branch scraping against a window somewhere. Even though he was a little less afraid of the place than he’d been when he first arrived, having met the master and beginning to see him as not quite as monstrous as he appeared, goosebumps still ran down the boy’s arms.

Once they were securely in their room and the rug had been spread back out on the now-clean floor, Dipper cleared his throat nervously.

“Grunkle Ford?”

His uncle looked at him with an inquiring expression; he vaguely noticed that the bandage was starting to droop a little over his eyebrows, so they’d have to retie it at some point.

“What-what you told Soledad earlier…” He gulped, really not wanting to ask this but feeling like he needed to, “...do you think we could get that in writing?”

It was almost funny, watching the way expressions chased each other over Ford’s face. At first he just looked confused; then slow realization began to set in, which evolved into shock, and then...absolute devastation. He knelt down and beckoned to the children.

“Come here.”

Dipper and Mabel approached, and he put a hand on each of their shoulders.

“Listen to me, both of you.” Ford looked back and forth between their faces as he spoke. “I would never try to leave you behind. When we go, we go together. I promise.” He chewed his lip, looked uncertain for a moment, and then continued with more resolve, “I accidentally strayed outside the castle walls while I was walking, and...had another memory lapse, which caused me to wander away.”

Dipper’s stomach twisted. “Really?”

Ford nodded. His expression was somewhere between worried, curious, and frustrated. “It seems...being here helps with that, somehow. It makes it easier for me to remember things consistently, and-and even dredge up beginnings of old memories-or at least what I  _ think _ are memories.”

“Maybe you’re under an evil spell, Grunkle Ford!” Mabel suggested.

Ford blinked-but then tilted his head and considered the idea.

“...It would explain a few things,” he admitted at last, rubbing his chin. “I’ve never heard of one specifically based around causing selective memory loss, but that doesn’t mean they don’t exist.”

Mabel grinned at Dipper. “See? I told you it was probably a spell.”

Dipper sighed, and reluctantly nodded in acknowledgement. “Yeah, yeah, don’t let it go to your head.”

“A _ hem _ .” Ford drew their attention back to him. “I think that if we’re to get any substantial answers about this, we need to find that journal. So starting tomorrow, when we get back to cleaning and preparing to turn this castle into an-” his nose wrinkled like he was smelling something bad, before he muttered the next word out through gritted teeth- “ _ attraction _ , I want you two to look everywhere you can for where Soledad might have put it. Do you think you can do that for me?”

Dipper nodded eagerly. “You got it, Grunkle Ford.”

“Me too,” Mabel chimed in.

Ford beamed, and squeezed their shoulders. “Very good.”

* * *

***

* * *

Despite the stressful day they’d had, the Pines family had very little trouble going back to sleep.

Or, perhaps it was  _ because  _ of the stress taking its toll on their bodies, making them more exhausted. Ford wasn’t sure which, but either way it seemed like the moment he closed his eyes he was asleep. And once again, he dreamed.

* * *

_ He was running on the beach on a hot summer’s day, feeling sand getting in his shoes but more worried about the dire threats his mother had made if he came home with sliced up feet again. Up ahead of him, another figure ran faster, laughing and kicking up sand as he chased an irritated seagull. _

_ “Hey, wait up!” Ford called, trying to pick up speed. _

_ “Yeah, you should  _ keep  _ up!” the figure retorted with a quick glance over his shoulder-quick enough that all he was able to see of his face was the faint glint of his smile in the sunlight. _

_ “I can keep up!” _

_ They chased each other over a sand dune towards the water, at which point the gull finally took to the air, out of the other boy’s reach. He let out a disgusted sound, and kicked a shell with his shoe, scuffing the toe. _

Ooh, that’s the third time this month. Pa’s not gonna be happy if he sees that he keeps ruining his shoes-especially cuz he wants to present us at court soon.

_ Before Ford could point this out, the other boy suddenly turned his head-and let out a surprised gasp as his eye landed on a spot they hadn’t discovered before. _

_ It was an old cave, right on the edge of where the high tide would rush in, and at some point someone had boarded it up. _

_ Instantly both of them were curious. _

_ “Uh, ladies first,” the other boy said, bowing to Ford. _

_ He gave him a playful punch in the arm, and was treated in kind, before trying-and failing-to pull it open. _

_ “Good thing ya got your smarts, Sixer!” the boy said, turning towards the entrance. “I got the other thing! What was it called? Oh, yeah-PUNCHING!” _

_ A minute later the boards were in pieces, and they were slipping through the dark creepy entrance, eager for this new adventure into the unknown- _

_ When suddenly a horrifying,  _ bloodcurdling _ roar split the air! _

* * *

Ford was abruptly jolted awake, gasping as his sleep-addled brain tried to process what had just happened. For some strange reason, the corners of his eyes felt a little damp.

Both the kids were clinging to him again; he could feel their fingers digging into his nightshirt, and that they were both trembling.

“Wha-what was-” He sat up and squinted, realizing that it was still dark outside.

“...You know about the creature that sometimes roars in the middle of the night?” Dipper asked.

“Yes.” Oh good; someone else was able to hear that, and he  _ wasn’t _ going crazy after all.

“We just found out what was doing that.”

“...Ah.”

In hindsight, it was kind of obvious.

“Do you think we should be worried?” Dipper cast an anxious glance towards the door, as if he thought Soledad was about to smash through it and disembowel them.

“...Maybe he’s just not sleeping well,” Mabel suggested. “Or his injuries might be bothering him or something. Should we go check on him?”

“No, I think his…” Ford struggled for the right word, “... _ companions _ should be able to take care of him if it’s anything like that.”

Mabel made an unhappy sound, but when Ford lay down again she snuggled down against his shoulder.

Dipper was a little more reluctant; he kept sitting up until Ford gently tugged his shirt.

It was about ten minutes before any of them relaxed enough to go back to sleep.

* * *

***

* * *

The nightmares were back.

Soledad didn’t get them as often as he used to. He’d almost forgotten how much they  _ sucked _ .

The worst part was that when he woke up, he could barely remember what they’d been about; mostly what he felt afterwards wasn’t even fear, like you might be expecting.

What he felt instead was a deep sense of  _ loss _ .

It frustrated him to no end, while at the same time it tore him apart.

Slowly, painfully, he sat up from his spot on the floor and wiped at his eyes (if anyone asked, it was that gritty stuff that ended up around your eyes while you were asleep, and there was no way you could prove anything else).

His animals, who of course had all been awakened by his roaring, clustered around him with worried eyes. Soledad tried to give them a reassuring smile.

“It’s okay, guys. Just a dumb dream, no big deal.”

Soos whined and pawed at his arm, while María hopped up onto his shoulder and rubbed against his cheek.

Soledad just lifted her off (gently; she wasn’t exactly in the prime of youth anymore) and set her on the ground.

“I’m  _ fine _ ,” he insisted. “I’m just...gonna go stretch my legs and get some o’ the jitters out o’ my system. Kay? Just go back ta sleep.”

None of them seemed convinced, but they all curled back around each other and made themselves comfortable again.

Soledad, once he was on his feet, ignored the way some of his injuries twinged, and headed for an altogether different part of the castle.

It was about time he took another look at that journal, to try and figure out what it meant.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Situations like this, ladies and gentlemen and other pronouns, are what happens when people don't communicate with each other properly.  
> Learn from it, please, so you don't repeat their mistakes.


	16. Work becomes a little more rewarding

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know it's been awhile since I added to this. I'm sorry, I've had a hard time balancing school and work, and apparently now work thinks I'm doing such a good job that they want me to upgrade my time to thirty minutes of transcribing a day even though I feel like I'm barely scraping by getting twenty minutes done-  
> *Starting to dissolve into incoherent sobbing*
> 
> *Awkward throat clear*  
> I'm okay, don't worry about me.

The next day, the kids and Ford were once again woken up with the dawn, when the peahen came in through the window and squawked them into wakefulness.

They dressed and went down to the kitchen, where some more food was laid out for them; today it was a bowl of fresh fruit, and a large pot of oatmeal that was still warm. Ford suspected, since there didn’t seem to be any kind of food storage available in this kitchen, that they had been stolen from somewhere else. However, beggars couldn’t be choosers in these circumstances, so he poured a bowl for each of the children, cutting up some of the fruit for them to add to it, and helped himself to the oatmeal once both his children were eating.

They were halfway through the meal when a door set in the wall of the kitchen opened, and out stepped the beast. He still looked worn out and sore from yesterday’s events, and was leaning on his cane kind of heavily, but he was moving around well enough, and perhaps had recovered from the worst of it. He was also still in his underclothes; perhaps he didn’t have other clothes? Well, of course not-it wasn’t like he’d have ready access to a tailor.

Dipper looked at the door he’d stepped out of in surprise.

“What’s in there?” he asked curiously.

“The severed heads of all my dead wives,” Soledad deadpanned. He let that sink in for a moment, before saying more sincerely, “Broom closet,” and opening the door so they could see that he’d stacked all their cleaning supplies inside. “Figure you can stick these in here when you’re done for the day.”

Ford gave a small nod, and spooned the last of the oatmeal into his mouth. A few drops of it dripped onto his shoe, and were quickly licked up by Soos, who of course was laying under the table in the hopes of getting scraps.

“We probably need to change your bandages before we get to work,” Mabel said, putting her bowl under the table for Soos to lick clean. “Both of you.”

Ford startled, but then remembered that yes, he had been injured as well.

The children both hurried off into the depths of the castle, and came back carrying the bandages and medicine and a bucket of clean water. As they set all the supplies on the table, Mabel gave Soledad a stern look until he sighed and lumbered forward to settle (as best he could with his enormous form) into one of the vacated chairs. Once he had, the children went to work on both of them.

“We wanted to give you a bath so we could clean you up better, but we couldn’t find a tub anywhere,” Mabel said as she checked under the bandage on Soledad’s arm.

The beast shrugged. “I usually just lick myself if I get dirty enough.”

She wrinkled her nose and giggled. “Ewwww!”

“Hey, it’s not so bad when ya get used to it.” He flicked out the tip of his tongue, touching it to her forehead and making her scurry backward with an amused shriek. Then he wrinkled his nose. “Maybe I oughta see if we have one somewhere, though. You folks are all really startin’ ta stink. Especially your brother and the old guy.”

“Hey!”

Soledad was unfazed in the face of Dipper and Ford’s indignation. “Who’s the one with the superior sense of smell here, you or me?”

Dipper blushed, but glared back at him defiantly. “Bathing is a waste of time! I’m a busy guy!”

Soledad’s eyes narrowed. Then, before Ford could see what was happening, one of his paws lashed out, grabbing his nephew by the arm and pulling him forward, until he was in reach of his jaws-!

-and pulled him onto his lap and began licking his face and hair.

The beast’s large tongue made a rough, sandpapery sound as it brushed across Dipper’s forehead and chin, and through his alarm Ford managed to realize, after a second, that the boy wasn’t actually being harmed by the experience. In fact, he let a few giggles escape when Soledad began cleaning his ears, and his squirming was more out of annoyance than any genuine fright.

Slowly Ford lowered himself back down, and unclenched his fist from around the knife he’d snatched off the table (it was very small, but it was the closest weapon at hand).

Finally Dipper managed to squeak out, “Okay! Okay! I’ll take a bath!”

Soledad pulled back, grinning, and booped the end of his nose. “That’s what I thought, shrimp.”

As he let the boy go, he turned and gave Ford a significant glance.

The old man shrank back a tiny bit. “I’ll take one too.”

“Good; you look like you’d taste terrible.”

Ford just rolled his eyes at him.

* * *

The next week fell into more or less the same pattern: the peahen (who Soledad remarked was named Pacifica-he really had made unique naming choices for his animals) would wake them up at dawn, and after breakfast they would continue the herculean task of attempting to clean the castle.

Before anything else, this mostly constituted of just trying to get rid of all the dirt, dust, grime, mold, leaves, cobwebs and other less describable filth that had accumulated over time, including in rooms that had been shut up and forgotten for years. Before long they had blisters all over their hands, and their arms and legs were more sore than they could ever remember them being, and while they had not yet found a tub, they all had to clean themselves off at the end of every day by heating water on the stove and taking a sort of shower-bath outside (though not all at the same time, of course).

It almost tempted Ford to try this one spell he’d heard about where you could animate cleaning supplies and have them do the work themselves; the only thing stopping him was the fact that he didn’t know how to make them stop working when you were done, and that could end in potential disaster.

He suspected that getting this entire place clean would take years instead of months, unless they could figure out a better way of managing things.

Three times a day they would find food in the kitchen, which mostly consisted of fruit, bread, and other things that didn’t require cooking and that Ford became increasingly certain were stolen.

Soledad never ate with them (they never saw him eat, actually, but once Ford saw him half-leap back over the wall surrounding the grounds with what looked like the leg of a deer in his mouth), but often his animal friends would join them, and even do the best they could to help out with chores, considering that they lacked opposable thumbs.

When they were too exhausted to lift one more rag or push a broom another inch, the little group would wander around the castle, or the yard surrounding it, looking for ways to amuse themselves. The outside was overgrown with vines and weeds, but in one corner lay the remains of what had once been a garden; if you looked closely you could see where things had once grown in neat rows, but had since become entangled and choked out by other plants, leaving only a few that were still capable of bearing fruit or vegetables, none of which seemed overly appetizing. Ford was sure that if Tate were to see it, he would do his equivalent of dissolving into a paroxysm of rage at the garden’s ill treatment (i.e. glare, and then roll up his sleeves and get to work). He began putting some effort into cleaning it up, so maybe they could start growing their own food instead of having to steal.

The little group enjoyed all the interesting things they kept finding discarded in different rooms which were still somewhat intact-trunks full of old clothes; a fully intact skeleton of an Abominable Bro-Man (Ford recognized the tribal tattoo which was somehow imprinted on the humerus) hanging in a very lifelike pose on a wall which nearly gave Dipper a heart attack when he first opened the door; a collection of fine, chipped china that was relatively usable once it had been washed. There were no clues about where all of this stuff had come from, but if they found something particularly interesting and showed it to Soledad, he would usually come up with an (admittedly creative, if still very annoying) way that it could be used for an attraction.

And in every room they found, Ford kept his eyes peeled for his journal, or for anymore clues about how he knew this place.

* * *

Then, one day, Soledad came home wearing a fresh set of ill-fitting black clothes that he must have swiped from somewhere, and carrying a pig under his arm.

“Figured you might want some fresh meat soon-it’s almost winter,” he said at Ford’s questioning glance. “Even got a couple good spices for it.” He fished the boxes containing said spices out of his pockets.

As soon as Mabel saw the pig, though, she let out a delighted squeal and went over to snatch it from his arms.

“OH MY GOSH LOOK AT YOU YOUR FACE IS SO FAT!” she cried, holding the pig up and gently shaking it back and forth until its face jiggled. “You’re the cutest thing I’ve ever seen!”

Soledad looked...nonplussed. “Kid, ya might not wanna get too attached. I got that for-”

“Don’t even _think_ about trying to eat him!” Mabel snapped, glaring up at him. “I’ve always wanted a pet pig, and this is finally my chance to get one!” She set the pig down and moved in front of it protectively.

Ford saw the fur on the back of the beast’s neck starting to bristle, and said quickly, “...She has been working very hard lately, and hasn’t complained once.” _At least not in the presence of the beast._ “Don’t you think she might deserve some kind of reward for all her service?”

Soledad glanced at him sharply out of the corner of his eye. Ford flinched, but pressed his point.

“She’ll take good care of it, won’t you, Mabel?”

She nodded without even looking away from her new pet. “I’m gonna call him Waddles-cuz he waddles when he walks!” Then she turned her head, and gave Soledad a long, pleading stare.

Soledad rolled his eyes. “Fine, as long as he doesn’t cause trouble like the last one.”

“...Last one?”

“Yeah, couple years ago I had this white pig I was plannin’ ta fatten up, but he kept gettin’ into everything and biting everyone.” His teeth glinted in a brief, savage smile. “He was _delicious_.”

Mabel shuddered, and hugged Waddles around the neck. “I’ll make sure he behaves himself, Soledad, I promise!”

“You better.”

* * *

***

* * *

Dipper was...needless to say he was startled when he came downstairs and learned that they had a pet pig now. But he took it in stride, and even smiled when Waddles came over and sniffed at his leg.

When chores were done for the day, Mabel immediately took her pig out to play, and Dipper and Ford were starting to head out after her when Soledad’s cane swung into their path.

“Hold up, eggheads.”

Once he had their attention, though, Soledad looked down at his paws, and awkwardly rubbed his neck.

“Um-I-I figured as long as Mabel’s gettin’ a reward for workin’ hard or whatever...oh, just-just come with me, I wanna show ya somethin’.”

And he gruffly stomped off.

Dipper and Ford looked at each other in confusion, but then followed him up to a corridor on the second floor.

Soledad stopped in front of a large set of (surprisingly intact) double doors, and then gave them a stern look.

“You both gotta close your eyes. No peeking.”

Dipper hesitated, but then obeyed.

He heard a jingling noise, and then a loud creak. A few seconds later a large paw was wrapped around his arm, and pulling him forward, and guiding him to lean against what felt like one of the doors. There was more rustling and the thudding of feet, then a faint swish sound, and then Soledad’s voice said, “Okay, open ‘em up!”

Dipper opened his eyes-and for a whole minute he could do nothing but gape.

The room he and Ford had entered had an enormous glass window, still miraculously intact, with a large set of blue curtains decorating either side of it that were actually clean. It was big and spacious, and warm and inviting. And it was absolutely _filled_ with books.

Shelf after shelf was stacked with them-large ones, small ones, ones that looked like they came from a different country altogether. And unlike the rest of the castle, which had been left to neglect and decay, this magnificent library felt like it was actually used once in a while. There was less dust in the air, and there was a large table in the middle of the room with a stack of books resting on it. Soledad was standing next to it, stuffing what looked like a crumpled pawful of papers into his jacket.

“...Um. Is it too much?” he asked hesitantly. “It’s too much, isn’t it? I just thought-since you’re both kinda dorks, this might be-”

“Incredible.”

Ford spoke in a hushed whisper, as he took a small step towards one of the shelves.

“This is the most wonderful room I’ve ever been in.”

He had that little frown between his eyebrows that meant he was getting a memory headache, but it didn’t seem as intense as they could sometimes get. Dipper allowed that to reassure him enough to step forward and do his own examination of the shelves.

“I didn’t think there could be this many books in one place in the whole world!”

“...Yeah, well, don’t get too comfortable. You can’t spend all your time in here, got it?”

“What if it’s to dust the books? A lot of them look like they need it.” Dipper was already dreamily examining some volumes on ancient history that were whispering his name.

“ _Ugh_ , I knew this was a bad idea.”

But Soledad had a faint smile on his face as he slipped out, allowing the nerds time to wander the shelves and try to pick out what they wanted to read first.


	17. Fun and games

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Spring break is finally here, huzzah!  
> For those like me, who have no interest in disappearing for a week and winding up in Miami with no idea how they got there, or whatever it is people who drink do during spring break, here's something to read instead.
> 
> Also, happy Pi Day, and beware the Ides of March.

The contents of this library could have held all the volumes in Ford’s house five times over, and still had room for a set of encyclopedias. They weren’t the most  _ organized _ selection in the world, since Ford could see that many of them had just been haphazardly placed together on the shelf without caring about whether they were alphabetical order, or even in the same genre, but it was still comforting in a way that only a library was capable of.

And, maddeningly, this was another room that he somehow  _ knew _ ; he didn’t exactly  _ remember _ being here before, he couldn’t remember when he’d come here or anything, but he  _ recognized _ it. As he wandered the shelves, looking at the spines of different books, he felt a tingle of familiarity with them, like they were old friends that he was finally seeing again. And he knew that if he looked over on this one shelf-yes, there it was!

“Dipper?” Ford called excitedly, “Dipper, come and look at this!”

There was a muffled thud,followed by an “Oof!” and then, after some scrambling around, Dipper came running through the shelves to his side.

“What is it?”

Ford pulled a particular book down from the shelf-a second later, Dipper’s eyes went wide as saucers.

“Is that a copy of  _ Master Ballway’s Dungeons, Dungeons & Verily, More Dungeons-the Rulebook _ ?!”

Ford nearly dropped the heavy tome onto his foot. “You know this game?!”

Dipper nodded eagerly, eyes aglow. “Grandpa Shermie taught me how to play it, and he gave me my own set of dice and everything!” The excitement faded a little. “...I think they’re still back at your house, though.”

Ford looked back at the shelf, and smiled again. “Oh, you don’t need to worry about that, my boy. Look!” And he produced a couple of bags of dice which had been hidden behind the book, followed rapidly by a stack of oddly lined paper and some pencils.

Dipper immediately brightened up again. “I can never get Mabel to play with me; she gets confused by all the dice-rolling and math stuff.”

“Yes, I had a similar problem with-” Ford froze, frowning in confusion-which quickly turned to frustration. The memory had been right there, he’d almost had it! A petulant frown, and a voice asking, “What kinda dumb power is ‘Charisma’, Sixer?” swam before his mind’s eye-but he couldn’t quite remember the face, or associate a name with it-just that it had been...someone very important.

A sweaty hand tugged his sleeve.

“Grunkle Ford?” Dipper’s voice was cracking with anxiety on the edges. “Are you okay?”

Ford shook himself, and gave Dipper a reassuring smile.

“Yes, I’m all right. Just...sort of remembering something. But it’s gone now.”

Dipper frowned in disappointment. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be.” Ford lightly touched his shoulder. “We need to stop all work for the day-and play!”

* * *

***

* * *

Soledad looked thoughtfully at the outside of the castle-specifically at the vines that had grown all over the walls, and chunks of crumpled masonry scattered around them-and wondered if the aesthetic of the creepy haunted castle worked better with or without them.

_ If I leave it like that, that means one less job I can make the humans do. On the  _ other  _ hand, they do make the place look a lot creepier. Decisions, decisions… _

Soledad tapped his claws on the top of his cane, and his tail twitched back and forth in accompaniment with his thoughts. He almost didn’t notice in time the brightly colored figure that was trying to sneak up on him, and barely twitched his tail to safety in time to keep Mabel and her pig from pouncing on it.

“Hey!” Mabel protested, sitting up and pouting at him. “You spoiled our game!”

“Your game?” Stan demanded. “Excuse  _ me _ , ya little gremlin, but my tail is not a toy! Go play over there or somethin’, I’m tryna think!” He gestured over to the farthest part of the yard with his cane.

“But I wanna catch your tail! It looks so soft and fluffy!” Mabel tried to grab the tip of it again, but Soledad flicked it out of reach with a small growl of annoyance, before stalking away.

Undeterred, the kid and her pig chased after him, making ineffective grabs at his tail.

Soledad tried to keep watch on her out of the corner of one eye, and look at the castle with the other-it was about as easy as it sounds.

After a while the pig got bored, and wandered off to graze on a patch of grass nearby, but Mabel continued trying to grab his tail as he stomped around the perimeter of the castle, making mental notes about possible attractions and stuff. She was getting really creative about it, too-she’d climb onto one of the nearby fallen rocks and try to dive bomb him, or crawl behind one of the nearby bushes and jump out at him, or even crawl through the grass as low as possible, apparently thinking that her bright pink sweater somehow camouflaged well with the greenery.

Soledad was mortified to find himself trying not to smile as Mabel got more ambitious, and at the expression of grim determination on her little face as she snatched at his tail, and he was forced to dodge and step from side to side just to keep it out of her reach.

“I’m gonna get your tail one way or another-you might as well surrender now!” Mabel cried, charging at him for what had to be the twentieth or thirtieth time.

And at that, he decided that enough was enough.

Soledad twisted to the side so she smacked into his hip-and then, unexpectedly, he seized her by the arms and lifted her into the air, flipping her upside down.

Mabel let out a startled squeal, which quickly turned into helpless giggling when he grabbed her ankles in one paw, and with the other paw (barely remembering in time to be careful, since he had claws and she had soft squishy flesh) began squeezing and squishing her belly.

“It’s  _ you _ who needs ta surrender!” Soledad growled playfully, wiggling his fingers up and down her ribs.

“NEVER! My will is unbreakable-eek!” Mabel thrashed when he found what was apparently her weak spot.

Soledad grinned, and continued his merciless display of tickling until she finally gasped, “Okay, okay, I give up!”

* * *

***

* * *

The torment stopped instantly, and Soledad lowered Mabel back to the ground, turning away while she lay there and let the redness fade from her cheeks.

“Let that be a lesson ta you: if ya mess with a guy’s tail, you gotta-yowp!”

“Ha! I told you I would get your tail!” Mabel crowed, holding onto it for all she was worth.

The next tickle attack she received, which left her an exhausted, giggling mess for at least five minutes, was so worth it.


End file.
